This is a work of satire.
On the best of days, UMBC is a very crowded place. In between classes, Academic Row bears more resemblance to a mosh pit than an honors university. Take a look at the Commons during free hour: the lines for food are much too long, the tables far too full of students eating alone.
“You think I’m going to go to D-Hall instead?” said Poppy Jefferson, a junior computer science major. “Absolutely not! My body does not deserve such maltreatment. But the wait? It has to go.”
Indeed it does, Poppy. Some students, not willing to wait in line for a simple cup of water, have been found climbing the fence of the RAC to go drink water from the pool. “Tangy and surprisingly sweet,” one student said. “It makes you wonder where the campus’s water really comes from.” Other students scrape at the Commons’ toaster oven in an effort to gather sustenance in a more time-efficient manner.
The campus loop overflows with students on the quest for a parking spot. “It feels like purgatory,” one student said during an interview conducted through the window of their car. “Every time you think you’re going to get a spot, it turns out a car was already parked there.” Some students have taken to double-stacking their cars. Despite the space-efficiency, such an approach has already ruined countless vehicles and — worst of all — parking spaces.
In an effort to keep their students happy, UMBC has taken a stand against the long waits, crowded hallways and packed parking lots. Using a lottery-style system which even Thanos would balk at, UMBC has decided to roll out a “selective extinction program” to remove eight in ten UMBC students.
They call this draconian policy “Operation Bubonic Plague.” Many are unhappy with this name, claiming it to be a misnomer given that the Bubonic Plague only wiped out 30 to 50 percent of the population.
The administration is still working out some of the details. They have confronted issues in finding enough headsmen to expedite the process. They are also struggling to get a hold of enough whetstones for when the axes go dull from all of the severed students’ heads. Nonetheless, they plan to complete this little project by the end of November.
“It’ll be great,” said Jefferson, “I won’t have to wait in line for an average quality food experience.” When asked if it would be lonelier, Jefferson just shrugged. “It’s already lonely,” he explained. “Rather than having to stand alone and awkwardly eat my lunch, now I can sit alone and eat my lunch.” When asked about the possibility of befriending someone who was also sitting alone, Jefferson just laughed and shook his head. “I’ll wait for them to get executed, thanks.”
Of course, this all assumes that Jefferson even makes it past Operation Bubonic Plague. And let’s be honest, folks — he almost certainly will not.
For those curious, the list of those who are going to be executed has been posted on myUMBC. After noticing a suspicious trend in the data, we approached the higher-ups to see what was going on. When asked why the only students selected to be executed in this supposedly random lottery were non-STEM majors, the administration declined to comment. “Don’t call it execution,” one administrator said. “It’s selective extinction.”
