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What is the Sco? The Class of 2024 wants answers now!!

by Anna Holshouser-Belden



[originally posted February 2021]


 

It’s a Wednesday night, around 10pm. You’re sitting in that room in Wilder with the giant table and the secret bathroom (you know the one), trying to write that paper you’ve been avoiding for weeks now. Being a college student is harder than you thought!! Between the global pandemic, the workload, and the fact that the cashier at Mickey Mart finally spotted that expired fake ID saying that you’re 28 (who knew it wouldn't scan??), the semester has been off to a rough start….. Feeling yourself losing focus, you announce to your friends that you're going to go pick up a Yerba Mate from Decafe downstairs. Walking past the hallway next to the Rat, you see a sign on the wall: “What are you grieving for from the Oberlin of one year ago?” Oberlin one year ago…,..... Huh???? At this point you forget where you’re going and stare open-mouthed at the wall, unknowingly causing a traffic jam in the hallway and a collision between a student and a cart full of the famed Oberlin fruit cups.You can’t even fathom an Oberlin that existed one year ago. You turn around slowly but surely and walk towards the mailroom blatantly ignoring the arrows pointing the opposite direction on the floor below you, because this is just too serious of a matter to concern yourself with stupid Obiesafe protocols!!!!! Some inexplicable force is violently pulling you by your legs around the corner until you stand in front of a set of blue double doors next to a bulletin board with posters advertising shows from years past….. The Sco!!!???? What the h*** is that???


FLASH FORWARD


Here at the Oberlin Grape, we know that the exact scenario above is one that is universal among the class of 2024. So we’ve taken it upon ourselves to start up a top-secret investigation into what lies behind that mysterious set of blue double doors, led by the class of 2024’s resident detective, detective Pit Farts, who has generously taken the time out of her busy schedule of investigating the hidden meanings behind President Ambar’s instagram posts and filming her reality show about what life is really like in a FYRE dorm to help us out. After a series of heated interviews with Obies and a few dangerous-but-still-socially-distant stakeout missions, we’ve compiled a list of possible explanations for the mysterious “sco”:


  • According to an anonymous Dascomb resident, the so-called ‘Sco is a secret workout studio for President Ambar and Meredith Raimando...where else did we think she learned how to flip tires??

  • The person working the Wednesday night ice-skate rental shift gave our investigative journalist a “Winter Oberland” related inside scoop: the “Sco” is a frozen storage space where the college mass-manufactures ice sculptures of albino squirrels.

  • Speaking of storage-space….. Have you (the reader) ever noticed how the bins for green containers are always overflowing?? And how all of a sudden the next morning they're EMPTY even though there are definitely way too many to wash?? Well, you heard it here first, the “Sco” is where they put all the containers too smelly to ever consider reusing. So don’t worry about that one growing mold in the corner of your room.

  • An anonymous source let us know that the ‘sco could be where the Azzies staff sleeps when they’re not serving delicious cold brew (which happens to be a lot of the time)

  • One third year told us that the “Sco” is where they send people who make one too many jokes about obscure films that no one wants to see-it is yet to be determined if this was sarcasm.

  • On a stakeout mission, our detective saw the majority of the swim team walking out of the door in Wilder closest to the alleged “sco,” and realized that there could be an Olympic swimming pool under the floor of the mailroom

  • After approaching a professor leaving the science center, our detective got an insider scoop that the “Sco” is a top-secret lab where biology students install cameras in the bodies of innocent ladybugs and put them in students rooms to see if they're really following COVID rules.

  • One raving lunatic claimed that the allusive “Sco” used to be a space for “dancing” and drinking “half off pitchers of beer on Wednesday nights with your friends” but obviously that is completely insane and far fetched. Probably just a senior trying to trick gullible first years.


Unfortunately, our investigation was cut off here, with disappointing results. Our detective (Ms. Pit Farts) finally made friends (being a first year is hard guys) and had better things to do. So, we are now looking to our readers: if YOU know what the fuck the ‘Sco is, please call in 1-800-WHATSTHESCO for a $500 cash prize.











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