By Sarah Reif
Dear Binston Swongo,
It’s your old friend, The Devil! Hope you’ve been good, buddy. I miss the good old times we had together. Especially our improv and sketch comedy troupe in Las Vegas! We did such important work. Of course, that was before I became President and CEO of Grocs.
I must admit, Binny, I actually write to you on business. I made a little visit to campus a couple weeks ago and I think I may have made a dire error while there. I need your advice.
By Josh Emrys Payong
Dear Binston Swongo,
Every night since Halloweekend, I’ve found myself lost in the woods past the golf course, stroking each pine and spruce as if they were his own trunk. You see, Binston…I thought I hooked up with the real Lorax that Friday night. He whisked me away from the Harris by the arm with his soft cheeto-colored hand, his other firmly grasping his bushy tushy like he does when he flies. It was cold out, but it mattered not, for his voluminous moustache enveloped me like a womb does to a baby. He ripped open my fursuit from behind (you see, I’d gone as the Cat in the Hat, but with humongous naturals) and most definitely Let it Grow. But just as I was about to finish, I accidentally ripped some bark off the tree I’d been leaning on. All he did was stop, shake his head, re-twisted his cock (did you know that the Lorax has a corkscrew dick, like ducks? wild), then flew off into the night sky. What do I do with myself, Binston? How do I fill this stout, oval-shaped hole in my gaping ass?
Sincerely,
Cat in the Hat with Humongous Naturals
By Bella Takata
Dear Binston Swongo,
10/10 is next weekend, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to make it through the day. Not that I think I’m going to die or anything, but 10/10 is a marathon and I’m more of a sprint kinda guy.
I have a pretty bad track record. Last year, at my first 10/10, I didn’t even start drinking until around 1 pm. We’d had a competition earlier that day, so my buddies were eager to get a “running start” when they burst into my room with enough alcohol to kill a Trojan army. I hardly made it to the first party. The tally marks counting the drinks on my arm were in the dozens within the first hour, and I’m not particularly big and strong or anything, so this really got me. At wrestling, I was sprawled out on the lawn 20 feet away, and by 3 pm, I was asleep in bed!
By Henry Coen
Dear Binston Swongo,
I accidentally set my scale to kilograms instead of grams when I was measuring my mushrooms for Alice, and I think I might have broken my brain. People’s faces now look like monsters, all music sounds like farts to me, and the voices in my head have gotten so much louder. What should I do? Is there any way to fix this?
—Oliva Dosa ’26
By Carter Ottele
Dear Binston Swongo,
As I write you, I must pick sides in a clash of two sacred values—one being my inner identity (that which I clutch closest to my heart), and the other my inalienable right to free expression. You see, I have seen the posters hung around campus. I have read the emails, typed in those vivid fonts, advertising publication in a student-run art magazine. I know what The Sequence, that enigmatic beacon of visual art, demands of me…and I know, too, that I yearn to heed its call.
And yet I cannot. Although I ache to “submit to The Sequence,” I am inherently dominant, so to consensually submit would constitute a betrayal of all that I hold dear. Binston Swongo, I command you to counsel me with wisdom. How shall I possibly balance these competing desires?
– Internally Conflicted
Dear Binston Swongo,
It’s you, Binston… I never thought when I filled out that survey that I would match with you, the single most sought after bachelor on Grinnell’s campus. I never thought that we could share so much in common, our commitment to the advancement of the OTHER political cause, our enjoyment of shoplifting, and the belief that love is a promise.
By Josh Emrys Payong
Dear Binston Swongo,
Professor Largepaw (82M) from my Cryptozoology seminar pulled me (20M) to the side with his big, hairy, masculine arms after class to ask me if I would be “the twink to his bear” at the Winter Waltz this year. I’m not sure how I feel about that. I probably would’ve gone if he was still in his 60s, but this age gap is a little awkward now.
By Binston Swongo (Edited by Dale Bell)
Dear Binston,
I (21 M) am having an issue with the demon (∞ ∄) that I summoned for my Religious Studies class on Early Christian Demonology. We were studying summoning rituals, and well, the liberal arts experience is all about “learning by doing,” so I sacrificed some goats and arranged their entrails in an ancient symbol lost to time (which I found scrawled on the wall in the Burling bathroom) and boom—there he was! Great, right? Not so much.
By Dale Bell
Dear Binston Swongo,
I’m the president of a certain liberal arts college in Iowa, and, well… I’ve lost the endowment. Look, it wasn’t one big mistake—more like a thousand little ones—and then one big one. Last year, we invested heavily into B&SCoin, spent several million on private detectives to find the nutcracker that was stolen from DHall, and then I went double or nothing on a bad beat at the Midwest Liberal Arts College Presidents Biannual Poker game.
By Jude Morgan
Dear Binston Swongo,
I’ve reached my breaking point. As a small business owner, I believe fully that this cruel and terrible world has it out for honest people trying to make a living. I started off as a humble arms manufacturer, just trying to make a buck and change helping out the common folk. Yet as of late, it seems as if society looks down upon hard workers like myself, choosing to favor more trendy ideas such as “ethics” and “workers’ rights” and “undergraduate labor unions”. It pains me even further to see the once great institution Grinnell fall down this path. What’s next? Paid leave? I shudder at the thought.
Despite my many qualms I still continue to exceed profit margins beyond my wildest dreams, but deep down my feelings are hurt. How can I sleep at night knowing that there is no hope for the preservation of tradition?
– A Morally Ambiguous Alum
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