Alright, well with the elections so near you can smell the eggs it ate this morning on its breath, it’s a good time to take a step back and scrutinize something much simpler and down to earth: Halloween restrictions. There is nothing better than being able to blow some steam off after the first half of the semester by putting on a skin-tight jumpsuit, cape and bat mask, calling up some friends from off-campus and going out to prowl the streets of the capital on the lookout for crime and pirate booty. Sadly, the administration on campus has, to our distress, continually cut our fun short year after year with restrictions in the dorms and apartment buildings.
From what I have heard, the entrance into the dorms will be very restricted as far as who can come in and with what. In my dorm-style apartment building they taped pages to our doors to alert us of the conditions we will be under for Halloween weekend. We will be given wristbands that will allow only one person in per resident. This means that you can’t have more than one friend in your apartment those nights.
They do this with the intention to stop parties, but it serves more as an inconvenience in sleeping arrangements since most will do the partying on the streets off-campus. They will also close off all the entrances except for the one at the front. The last thing on the notice concerned the noise. They told us that there would be people watching the noise levels in the hall and that there would be zero tolerance for parties. It may not be the same restrictions in all the residence halls and all the apartments, but I assume that it’s similar.
It’s Halloween. We deserve a break from studying, and if there was a time to let some rules slide it should be that weekend. It is ridiculous when the rules, on a holiday which is meant to be enjoyed, dampen the fun. They say that it’s for safety, but why is it that we need more safety on this weekend than on weekends when the football games are at home, or any other day of the week for that matter. The chance that someone, for some unknown reason, would burn down a building or kick in a wall exists at all times; Halloween is not to blame.
How is making me go through airport security at my building going to stop the drunks on State Street from doing what they do? How is keeping me from having more than one friend stay in my apartment going to hold back the flood of parties on Mifflin Street? How is telling me to be quiet in my room going to keep the people on the street from screaming at the top of their lungs while they get chased around by a group of guys in Romney masks?
I can, however, tell you that these rules will keep us from having friends from other places come through; that it will make it impossible for us to get to our apartments or dorms without being molested by the hospitable people at the front desk and, of course most importantly, it will be difficult for me to run down the hall on my floor dressed as Batman throwing candy into everyone’s rooms without having the RA go through a fit.
It’s time we do away with these chains that keep us from enjoying Halloween as it should be: passing out in a costume on the bathroom floor. Enjoy yourselves, just remember, when you decide to go burn down a building or kick in a wall, your decision is the reason we can’t have nice things.
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