This past Monday and Tuesday, students who visited the College’s COVID testing center were lucky enough to receive a free sugar cookie from A-Frame bakery, which the College claims was a gesture of support in what it knows is a difficult time for many students.
While students described the sugar cookies as “good,” and “nice of them to get for us I guess,” many were less excited when they found out the cookies had been purchased as a replacement for one of next week’s scheduled mental health days.
“By giving students cookies—sorry, I mean one cookie––we think we can really brighten their day in a significant way,” Mandel told our reporter.
“Students are not permitted to take multiple cookies,” she added, even though our reporter had declined to take even one. “We have heard reports of students taking multiple cookies, and CSS is currently using wifi data to identify those individuals.”
The administration has entitled the project “Operation Smiles.” Equal parts laughable incompetence and deep, sadistic cruelty, the plan has been described by President Mandel as “the perfect encapsulation of what we stand for as an institution.”
“When Maud told me I could do a project with the testing site, I just tried to stick to my basic philosophy of how I should approach every aspect of my job,” said a beaming Marlene Sandstrom, who seemed to think she was being interviewed because she had done something good. “You start with a situation where nothing at all is wrong, and you think, how can I make things a little more complicated? Getting rid of a mental health day was a no-brainer.”
Sandstrom enjoyed the cookies as much as anyone else. “It looks like a W––the letter W––but in fact, it’s a cookie, a piece of food that you can eat,” Sandstrom said, slowly, so our reporter might be able to understand..
When our reporter asked Sandstrom what the College would even lose by giving students a mental health day she appeared to be confused. “Not only do the cookies taste good, but they look like the first letter of the college’s name, and also they are purple,” she said with a concerned look on her face. “You’re very happy now, why aren’t you smiling? You ate the cookie, didn’t you? Give us a big smile now. Give us a smile. If you don’t smile for me right now I’ll transition you to remote so fast you won’t even be able to grab a sugar cookie on your way out.”
Our reporter politely told Sandstrom that the cookie had made them about .0001% happier, but that that didn’t explain why it meant the College needed to take away mental health days. “We can’t have you guys, like, genuinely happy,” Sandstrom said, finally understanding the question. “Let’s not get crazy here.”
“Almost every student is struggling, so we knew we had to make a significant gesture,” said Mandel, writing a $41 check to A-Frame bakery. “Our students are our number-one priority,” she added, as she pushed aside a stack of papers labeled “requests for more IWS funding” to make room for a brand new set of “Stay Eph-in healthy” signs that her assistant had just delivered.
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