By Josh Emrys Payong

We are living in the future. Scientists recently dropped one of their most dystopian bangers yet: a fully-mapped fly brain – all 167,000 neurons – uploaded to the digital cloud with open access to all that might want to subject a wee digital insect (with memories and a personality) to fates worse than seeing your crush dance with someone else at Lingerie Ball Gardner. As sadistic as this technology can be, Grinnellian scientists are proving that this technology can be used for good by applying it to the most noble of causes: the defense of partying hard.

One of the topics discussed at the recent trustee meeting was the impending danger of a most horrific annual event: 10/10. Despite recent developments in harm reduction via safety dogs and sober volunteers, trustees do not believe Grinnellians have the “right to throw it back socialist-style”. Dick Superrich ‘95 explains, “This ‘tradition’ has gone on far too long. Every year, it undermines our efforts to fragment the Grinnell community into easily budgetable cliques. We can’t justify sending another million dollars to Weekend if we keep having to compete with events as big as 10/10! Oh, also, the alcohol is bad too.”

Grinnellians, with their unending desire to Go Forth, have taken it upon themselves to prove to the trustees that “10/10 really isn’t all that bad, and is actually kinda fun,” claims Simon Cerebellus ‘27, “and what better way to prove that than with some old-fashioned scientific rigor?”

Cerebellus and a few other neuroscience concentrators have created a simulation in which the open-access fly brain – nicknamed Buzz Balldrin – is forced to experience an average 10/10, shots and all. The resulting neural readings to be presented to the trustees include important cognitive metrics such as Happiness, Willingness to Do Work Tomorrow, Desire to Acquiesce to the Ruling Class, Sexual Confusion, Sense of Community, Hunger for Gooey Butter Cake, and Intoxication (the last two are redundant). To ensure applicability to the Grinnellian experience, the fly was preset to have an appropriate amount of academic pressure, an ambiguous gender, and $2 to its name.

Here is the hour-by-hour recap of Buzz’s day with their most notable developments:

9AM: Buzz wakes up and forgets to put on deodorant. He will regret this.

10AM: First shot. Get breakfast in the form of rotting bananas that people leave around South.

11AM: Buzz isn’t feeling it enough. 11AM shot becomes 11AM fifth. Bottoms up.

12PM: Ah, beeswax. That might’ve been too much. They projectile vomit all over the Zirkle.

1PM: Buzz breaks two arms while wrestling an army trainee. Good thing he has four more.

2PM: Buzz enjoys a show by the TDPS department, who always manage to put something on during 10/10. This time, it’s The Tempest, but they’re all flies in Noyce. Pure coincidence. Full fireball five thy fruit fly lies, or however the sonnet goes.

3PM: Itching to move, Buzz tries their hand at Die League. Without thumbs, they fail miserably.

4PM: They vomit again, this time narrowly missing Boy George. Phew.

5PM: Buzz, menacingly rubbing their legs together in the corner, makes a friend: Wett Swetty ‘28. They talk about the pain of growing up with a dad under 4’11”. 

6PM: During Drinner, Buzz – forgetting that he has wings – tries and fails to climb into one of the D-Hall windows by stacking plates to make stairs. They fall into Swetty’s arms.

7PM: Buzz watches the sunset from atop Bucksbaum with Swetty. Or wait, was it Burling? Doesn’t matter. They were only really looking at one beautiful person.

8PM: Buzz sticks his proboscis down Swetty’s throat. Maybe kissing boys isn’t so bad after all.

9PM: Buzz is heartbroken after their new love refuses sexual advances due to their intense B.O.

10PM-4AM: Readings from this point on are undecipherable, but Buzz’s sense of community and desire for gooey butter cake remained high.

Footage of Buzz Balldrin rambunctiously cheering their friends on at the beer die table.

As most Grinnellian science projects go, Cerebellus and his team couldn’t find any significant trends in the data to present to the trustees. However, moved by Buzz’s story, they offered to sponsor future 10/10s through Weekend. The 10/10 committee declined. 10/10 is, after all, anticapitalist. “We will fight to own the means of hosting functions with tooth and nail,” declared committee member Carlos Martinez ‘27.

Cerebellus, against all scientific guidelines for ethical research, has decided not to terminate the Buzz Balldrin simulation. They will get drunk, fall in love, and lose at Die League every day until the data centers run out of water. We can only hope for a life as blissful as that.