Humor and Satire: Breaking medical alert!

There is a peculiar epidemic that grips Vassar on the regular. It usually hits in full force during the end of each semester, but there are many cases reported around midterms as well. Some people suffer from a low-level condition constantly. The disease in question? Whine flu.

Whine flu* is a powerful yet insidious sickness characterized by Vassar students attempting to one-up each other when talking about their misfortunes. If you mention to a person with whine flu that you have a paper due on Friday, they will inform you that they have three papers due in an hour, all written in colloquial Swahili, which must be submitted on Harry Potter-style rolls of parchment. You can't win. And homework complaints aren't the only symptoms; victims of whine flu will manage to kvetch about their brutal rehearsal schedule, noble-yet-exhausting fundraising efforts to turn Haiti into a self-sustaining resort paradise-cum-roller derby, and menstrual cycle irregularities all before you've had time to say hello.

Much like its porcine counterpart, whine flu can be contracted from a variety of sources. Coming into contact with the delightful people who carry it is one way, but so is spending any length of time in the library (especially the art library), taking an intro language course, or realizing you're out of Retreat points right as you're fantasizing about a post-lecture bacon cheeseburger. Before you know it, you're sitting down at the All-Campus Dining Center with a group of people and unleashing the floodgates of ennui into their disinterested, unprepared ears. It happens to the best of us. Except that then, the best of us realize how irritating we're being and stop babbling about page minimums and annotated bibliographies to our poor friends who just want to eat their Cap'n Crunch in peace. The worst of us never come around.

It's unclear whether the ultimate goal of whine flu sufferers is to garner sympathy, appear superior to the peons who aren't as busy as them, or just be raging axe-wounds. I realize that they're truly busy. Everyone at Vassar is busy; that's why we go to Vassar. We're not satisfied unless we're four different brands of tired. The trouble is the hierarchy of busyness that the whine flu victims try to perpetuate. It's not productive or a point of bonding; in fact, its only guaranteed effect is to make them seem like grade-A d-bags. We all feel sorry for you that you're the only person in New York State capable of building a working model of the Vatican out of Retreat utensils before Monday, but we feel ever more sorry for ourselves that we have to listen to you complain about it.

So brace yourselves, gentle men and women of this highly selective, residential, liberal arts college located in the scenic Hudson Valley. As finals draw rapidly closer, so does the onslaught of bitching and moaning. The only way to combat whine flu is to nip it in the bud; don't even bat an eye when your housemate or lab partner spends half an hour describing the throbbing carpal tunnel they've contracted from spending all night in the Media Cloisters, and they'll soon learn to put a sock in it. And if they don't, you can always beat them at their own game. I've heard that if you take the 8 a.m. Organic Chemistry class, the rest of the student body is rendered physically unable to complain at you ever again. Just sayin'.

Now I've got to go; I have to compose an opera entirely in Farsi rhyming couplets while simultaneously caring for a consumptive family of orphaned baby rabbits. Don't even mention the words "art," "history," or "flashcards" in my presence, because I have to memorize all art ever created anywhere before my final on Tuesday. That's only after I singlehandedly tear down Lathrop and renovate it using nothing but a knitting needle and the toiletries currently stored in my bathroom cubby**. At least some of us have managed to stay strong and fight the pull of whine flu, because I don't know where the rest of you weaklings would be without our fortitude.

* Whine flu is not to be confused with its much more desirable cousin, wine flu. Dr. Carlo Rossi and Nurse Practitioner Franzia can cure whatever ails you.
** Full disclosure: I have two cubbies thanks to the suspicious and The Shining-esque lack of people living on my hall. I have plans to branch out into a third.

Author's Note: Mad props to my freshmen-year student fellow group and its affiliates for accurately diagnosing this dread disease. Y'all can thank them with baked goods and awkward Mug hookups. Also, have a lovely summer!