The Daily Maybe #21: Here Comes The Boom (…Or Not)
They really tried making New College “red hot…”
Balk the enemy’s power; force him to reveal himself.
— Sun Tzu
Hello and welcome to The Daily Maybe! Now, from the ever-grandiose Sun Tzu quote with which I started this post, you may be under the impression that I’m about to tell a serious story, dear Reader.
…I’m really not.
Truth be told, I’m not even sure why I’m telling this story. It’s a story that happened last year at university. My college’s annual Orientation isn’t for another three months or so, however, and I haven’t done anything recently that reminded me of university or O-week or UofT at all.
That said, I did recently take a bit of an emotional hit. Things aren’t as I thought they were, which sucks, really…
So here’s a story about making the best of a bad situation.
The year is 2017. November has come, Winter is slowly but surely sinking her claws into the city, and yours truly is on the verge of completing his twentieth year of existence. Second year is well underway, with the first semester drawing to a close and Christmas break on the horizon.
Alright, traditionally-narrated setting done. Let’s get to the fun stuff.
Tuesdays are never the most exciting days. They’re too early in the week, too obscenely close to Monday for it to even be possible that something interesting happens. Tuesdays are boring.
On the Tuesday in which this story takes place, we received a bomb threat.
Okay fine it wasn’t so much a dramatic threat as it was just the bomb itself, but still. We had a bomb scare at the University of Toronto! At New College! That’s my college!
I was falling asleep in my short story class at the start of all the pandemonium. Though I do love short stories, we were going through the domestic American tales of John Cheever. While some of Cheever’s tales are genuinely enjoyable (The Enormous Radio is my personal favourite), a lot of them are as boring as “domestic American tales” would suggest. I was in desparate need of a pick-me-up.
Fate must have been listening to my internal pleas: at the exact moment my head slipped off my hand, I woke up to a notification on my phone.
It was a new groupchat, my friends Nkem and Khadecia comprising the other members. Though we were all mutuals, I’d never seen those two hang out together, so was a little confused. Were we going to Snakes and Lattes? Having a photoshoot? Did someone have beef? There was a world of possibilities here, none of them bad.
Except, maybe, this:
Nkem: Hey just checking in, are you guys okay?
Me: Bored out of my bloody mind, otherwise doing pretty good. You?
Nkem: Okay good, just asking because of the bomb at New.
Talk about dropping a bombshell.
So, we went from falling asleep in class to suddenly facing the potential evisceration of my favourite campus haunt. That… That is what we call escalation, dear Reader.
Class let out, and, taking a cue from white people in horror movies, I quickly made my way towards where I thought something foul was afoot. Upon arriving at New, I saw a throng of displaced students, all evacuated from Wilson Hall due to what we were told was an “unidentified object.”
Wait a second. “Unidentified object”?
So, this “object” hadn’t actually been classified as a bomb. Someone had found something weird in a vent in their room, and since the bomb in movies is usually in a vent, rumour spread like wildfire. The New College Willcocks building across the street quickly transformed into what looked like the aftermath of New Has Fallen; uprooted students buzzing around in a state of mild anarchy.
The New College Student Council now had a bunch of annoyed students right in front of their offices. People were wondering when they would be allowed to get back to the laptops and notebooks they were forced to leave behind in the rush. Impatience was brewing; it wasn’t a pretty sight.
Enter yours truly.
…okay that makes it sound like I had a huge part to do with the solution. I really didn’t do much aside from help out at the time, but nothing happened till I got there, so. I’m important to this story. Ish.
While everyone was milling around wondering when the “bomb” was going to go off so they could all get back to their stuff, Student Council decided to do the only reasonable thing to do to pass the time.
We threw a pizza party.
This one actually isn’t hyperbole. The scheduled free bubble tea event at Willcocks suddenly had a lot more participants, so Student Council decided to keep their displaced constituency at bay by ordering more tea and throwing pizza on top to boot. Ah, democracy.
While police and whoever else handled the “serious situation” across the street, we students sat and ate pizza. At this point, no-one actually believed there was a real bomb anymore, so we passed the time enjoying the ridiculousness of our predicament.
In the end? There was indeed no bomb at all; the offending object turned out to be “a kind of novelty item.”
We evacuated a building for a gift shop toy.
And that’s my story.
🍉 I’ve been lazy with the blog again. Ramadhan is now over, however; my sleeping schedule is more regimented, and my time during the day is better planned out.
Truth be told, a huge part of the reason I’m still inconsistent with the blog is that I’m still figuring out what to write about on a post-by-post basis. That may soon change, however.
I’m feeling more confident about talking about bigger issues. I’m finally figuring out how to give an opinion interestingly on pop culture topics.
I’m learning.
Alright, usual slew of “I’ll do better” remarks done. In terms of my actual life? Like I said, Ramadhan’s over now, and I’m getting reaccustomed to daytime eating and coffee.
It’s a wonderful time.
Till next we meet,
Sarim
