Due to Covid restrictions forcing students to eat their meals outside, many have noted the prevalence of what many assumed to be bees. Students have expressed annoyance with the bees, given that they frequently interfere with students trying to eat. However, one student, a harbinger of truth and easily the smartest kid on campus, has shouldered the responsibility of reminding everyone that they are not bees, but rather wasps.
“People like to call them bees,” said Wesley Smarty ‘21. “But people are wrong.” Wessley uncovered the truth after reading the same Record article as everybody else, and after striking up a conversation with Scott Lewis, who was fashioning little leashes for the wasps so he could take them on a walk. “Scott really opened my eyes after that. Now I’m helping to enlighten the campus. It’s important work,” he said, with the humility of Kanye West and while pulling a door marked “push.”
Smarty has taken to running up to clusters of people eating on Paresky lawn, casually joining their conversation by forcing his way into the circle and waiting for someone to mention bees. If no one says anything about them, he’ll release one wasp he keeps in a jar into the circle, with the hopes of someone misidentifying it. He’s also taken to putting up flyers around campus and has already used up his $50 printing allotment.
Caitlin George ‘24, was stung by one of the insects, but was helpfully reminded by Smarty that the cause of her anaphylaxis was not in fact, a bee sting as she had exclaimed, but actually a wasp. “I’m really glad he said something,” said George, stabbing herself with an Epi pen. “The scariest thing about the experience, aside from my throat closing up, would be looking dumb in front of my friends.”
“I just love sharing knowledge. Ignorance is the scourge of this campus,” Smarty said, standing in between the floor dots in the dining hall line.
But he isn’t just spreading the gospel by word of mouth. Smarty has been so inspired by his new intellectual journey that he’s actually planning to write his thesis on it. While only four sentences long, Smarty assumes it will be longer once he reads a few more articles on wasps not being bees.
It’s no easy feat being the most intelligent student on campus. “I actually could have gone to Harvard, but I wanted the small liberal arts experience,” said Smarty, jogging behind us after we ended the interview.
Smarty, already named valedictorian, expects to be listed in Forbes 30 under 30 for the following year. But this journey hasn’t been without its challenges. “It is really hard dealing with these pests,” he said. “Any by pests, I mean the duds who don’t know they’re actually wasps.”
Comments