Month: May 2023

By Carter Ottele

Gladys Pillsbury has had enough of your bullshit.

“I’m tired of people perceiving me like a relic,” says Gladys in a quiet, husky voice, with a twang that reveals her rural North Carolina upbringing. “I might be old, but I can still participate in lots of activities. And my mind is sharper than a wild boar’s tusk.”

For this year’s B&S senior interview, I spoke with Gladys in her home: a cluttered but comfy apartment in the Mayflower Community. Allergic to most pets and widowed for 22 years, Gladys lives on her own. She insisted, though, that she never grows lonely.

“It’s a community. I live with all sorts of exciting, engaging, titillating characters—yes, I know what that word means. There’s Raymond and Phyllis next door, and they’re always a great time. Phyllis makes this spiked prune juice that is just lovely. Then the next morning, I tend to wake up in the oddest of places: Broad Street, the Old Glove Factory, once even in Mitchellville.

Seniors Shocked To Learn They Need Silver Coin To Graduate

By Anna Lipari

HERRICK CHAPEL– The college is facing criticism from seniors who didn’t realize they’d need to hang onto that silver coin they received freshman year in order to graduate. When the President was asked about the policy, she stated, “I don’t know what everyone’s complaining about. It was clearly stated at the bottom of the student campus memo on January 5, 2020 that starting with the class of ‘23, all students would need to exchange one GrinnellCoin for their diploma. Are you telling me you haven’t been reading the memos? That figures– no one’s claimed the free scholarship the college offered at the end of the memo from April 23, 2015 yet.”

The revelation has left many seniors scrambling to fulfill this final requirement. Graduating economics major Josie Plimpton says that expecting seniors to hold on to the coin is ridiculous. “Nobody kept that thing. I used mine in a vending machine two weeks into my freshman year. I was swimming in fruit snacks for months.” In order to graduate, she plans to buy a new coin off a freshman: “One of the residents in my hall offered to give me his for five bucks. I didn’t tell him what for, exactly, but I’m a CA, so they trust me. I guess he’ll have to figure it out himself in three years, if he doesn’t drop out before then.”

How to Properly Dispose of Your Dorm

By: Ethan Hughes

It’s almost the end of the year. While the stress of school is almost over, attention must now be given to getting packed up and moving to your home, to your summer internship, or to the Norris Pit. Many students pack all their belongings into trunks and leave them for the mice and roaches to enjoy in storage over the summer, while others dump everything in the lounge for others to pick through and decide what they want to take. After all, everyone wants a filled-out worksheet from an econ class or used tissues, and a pile in the lounge is the most efficient way to respectfully rehome your possessions that no longer bring you happiness. These are all good and well strategies of dealing with your smaller possessions—but how do you deal with your room?

As a Grinnellian, you want to make sure your room is taken care of in a responsible and minimally impactful way. Obviously, just throwing it away won’t do. Sure it doesn’t have as long of a decomposition rate of plastic, but it will still fill up the landfill for decades to come and release all the asbestos and lead in the walls, which will negatively impact the community. So simply tossing it in the garbage can isn’t a real option if you care about the planet and want to be a responsible steward of the land and our resources. If you are in a bind and have no other option, try to dispose of it as toxic materials (but not as electronic waste). While still bad it will mitigate the damage and hopefully avoid poisoning anyone. Overall: a 2/10 solution horrible for the environment and incredibly wasteful, but quick and dirty in a pinch.

The Split Self: B&S, S&B Staff Writer Speaks Out

By: Conrad Dahm

Grinnell College is home to two starkly different literary publications: the B&S, a totally real newspaper that publishes only the finest stories, and the S&B, a publication that publishes “satire.” There are a few people on campus who work for both publications, and I am one of them. We are conflicted writers. Now you may ask yourself “what does that mean?” Well, I’m not really sure because I do enjoy writing for both papers but I have to like one more right? This article will be short and I will do my best to answer that question.

First and foremost, being a conflicted writer is not easy. Many a lunch I’ve sat by myself on the upper floor of the dining hall wondering about my decisions. “Why do I write for both? I need to make a decision.” Yet I never do. I always keep writing for both even though my editors constantly tell me to choose. How can you do that? How can you make a writer choose? Maybe I want to write for both! Why can’t the editors accept that?

Anne Harris Guest Column: I’ve Been Elected To Every SEPC

By Anne Harris (Edited by Dale Bell)

Editor’s Note: Earlier this week, in an upset that shocked pollsters campuswide, Anne Harris, President of Grinnell College, was elected to every departmental SEPC (Solid Edibles Processing Center). The yearly SEPC (Sexual Exploits Poster Convention) elections, which the B&S has been assured do, in fact, matter, are conducted towards the end of the academic year and often feature departments’ most driven students vying for the opportunity to do whatever it is the SEPCs (Subtle Evening Perfume Collection) do.

Well well well. Don’t we all just love watching democracy in action. The votes are in, the people have spoken, and they have spoken my name. The crowds scream it outside my office, day and night, ceaselessly. ‘Anne Melichior Harris!’ they cry, ‘Save us!’

I will.

That’s right you little bastards, I’m on the SEPCs now. Every last fucking one of them. And there are going to be some changes around here because my platform was NUTCRACKER REPATRIATION and I intend to DELIVER on my campaign promises. I’m not like other politicians, I’m true to my word, I’m determined, and I haven’t eaten or slept in a year.

Hail Mary– God’s Wrath Strikes Grinnell