Bring on the snow. Bring on the cold. Hit us hard, great weatherman in the sky. Wisconsin winters are awful, but I'll suffer anything to be rid of the unbearably loud or scary gatherings of people I've suffered recently. And winter might be my only hope.
These nuisances can be broken down into three categories: library socialites, screwballs on Gilman Street and publicly loud people. The overriding problem is that these people feel comfortable outside. That's where the weather comes in. But since I don't have a private line to Zeus, I've come up with my own master plan for ending the madness.
The first problem is the library. People like me go to Helen C. White to work quietly. But every night, it attracts dozens of kids who stand by the study rooms and shout into their cell phones or talk loudly with friends. I have a solution.
The library is a huge building. The school should take one room, soundproof it, decorate it and call it Club Timeout. Charge a cover. Anyone in the library who wants to talk in the library must pay to enter the soundproofed hall. That way, people like me can study in peace and the people who were never really going to study can take their obnoxious chatting and posturing into Club Timeout.
After recouping renovation costs, revenue from cover charges could be used to handle the next problem: Gilman Street. Low-lifes have been gathering on Gilman for years, but things have gotten worse. Every week, I witness drug deals and harassments right in front of my building. Drugs in Madison don't bother me, but when people are unabashedly making exchanges 15 feet off State Street, things have gone too far. The revenue from Club Timeout should go to putting a guard on Gilman Street.
My third and final idea is a cure for the folks out there who make up 2 percent of the student body, but make 25 percent of the noise. You know who you are. You're not bad people; you're just really loud. That's why I want to create a special complex for you. All it will take is Madison officials realizing that the Overture project is a monumental failure waiting to happen, then using all that land and money to build an enclosed neighborhood for all those obnoxious mouth-breathers that need to be shut off from everyone else.
We could name the complex Camp Gibbler after the next-door neighbor from \Full House."" Accommodations would be comfortable and residents could leave for shopping, classes and vacations. Who would be moved to Camp Gibbler? Easy. If you're someone who thinks Friday night begins at bar time, you go to Camp Gibbler. If you decide at 3:45 a.m. that it would be fun to have a sing-along to that stupid bluegrass version of ""Gin and Juice,"" you go to Camp Gibbler. And yeah, pretty much any guy who wears a visor after dark; you go, too. The camp would pay for itself with rent alone.
In a perfect world, we'd just have a crippling winter arrive to keep people inside and morose. Unfortunately, we live in the real world. But with my real world solutions, we could all live in a quieter, happier Madison. Now, is it really so much to ask for a club in the library, an armed guard on my street and a special housing complex for people who annoy me?
Amos is in his fourth year out of five. He can be reached at amosap@hotmail.com. His column runs every Wednesday in The Daily Cardinal.
