LETTER: Stop monitoring our behavior
To the editor:
Dear ASUSU:
Now that you’ve proposed to spare us from smoke that the Bear River Health Department has deemed more harmful and odious than emissions from an Aggie Shuttle Bus (even as my lungs beg to differ), please direct your attention to an additional danger that threatens to compromise my health: persons on campus who carry excess poundage.
In what possible way do fat laden persons endanger my health you ask? Well, whenever I see one I’m drawn irresistibly to the Hostess Cupcake section of the Quickstop. In instances more severe, I make haste for Hazels. In short, stout persons trigger urges beyond my power to subdue, to engage in unhealthy behaviors. When I see them I can’t help but crave the sweet things of which I try so forcibly to deprive myself.
My sensibilites are no less refined or worthy of consideration than those who would regulate the behavior of our tiny contingent of outdoor smokers. As self-appointed campus nannies, perhaps you could bring your sanctimony to bear on my behalf, sheltering me as you have decided to shelter others. It may be reasonable to think that I, a rational adult by some accounts, could choose to avoid those sectors of the TSC serving the unhealthy cakes. Yet we all have our compulsions: our anti-smoking partisan must feign a cough or two upon seeing an outdoor smoker; I must partake of the pastries when in the presence of the plump. And as the overweight continue to multiply on our beloved campus, I find it utterly impossible to shield my eyes from all of them.
You’ve resolved to deliver others from secondhand smoke. I implore you to protect me no less earnestly or avidly from the perils of the portly. It’s clear that you know what’s best for us. I have no doubt that you’ll take actions necessary to eliminate yet another health hazard from our campus.
Thanks so much for being here to monitor our behavior.
John Walters
Merrill-Cazier Library