by syaffolee

Ditch Day 2002

Some seniors argued that we should have really put Ditch Day tomorrow (i.e. Thursday) due to the intense media hype and general lack of secrecy of the date of Ditch Day due to PR’s desire to “milk it for what it’s worth.” What started as rebelliousness, intellectualism, and just plain fun has been reduced to a simple cash cow. If only PR had been a little less crass and a little more discrete. Jay Leno could have toured through a genuine chaotic day at Tech and not through a crowd filled with camera huggers.

But this is no longer the honest fun of yore. Stacks are submitted in a contest to see which one is the best. Seniors no longer ditch when Ditch Day arrives. Some hang around to see how their “baby” is doing. Others want to make sure the stackees are doing the right thing. Obviously, they’ve never heard of a phone. I stayed on campus five past eight hanging up the last minute clues and only breathed a sigh of relief when I stepped off campus. Obviously, they’ve also never heard of the tradition that any senior found wandering around on campus past 8 AM was to be duct-taped to a tree for the rest of the day.

Perhaps I should say a few words about my own stack (after all, I spent a few sleepless nights working on it). It was titled Rasputin and in summary: the investigation of a detective’s mysterious death and the prevention of Rasputin’s spirit from taking over the world. The stack was cheesy, silly, and sometimes a bit disturbing. The stackees mentioned that the weirdness had my fingerprints all over it. The mastermind, they declared me. I don’t think so. My partners and I had talked over the plotline, sometimes nearing shouting levels–clearly a democratic process.

Our stack did not come out as anticipated either. Instead of using a stash of aluminum bats to crack open a pinata that we had made in a shape of a corpse, the stackees used the bats to terrorize other stackees. They ended up showing Leno some “bat tricks”. But mainly we were the type of stackers who gave stackees free reign (within limits).

We also had a maze built on the southern part of Beckman Auditorium. Little kids apparently loved it. The stackees used it as a watergun tag obstacle course. We’re leaving it up until a week before graduation. Yes, bring your kiddies too. Maybe they’ll also have a blast.

I am so very tired.