Vegetable House

Hanna Rosin's recent piece in The New Yorker, in which she finds an odd humanity and pathos in the home-schooled android student body of Patrick Henry College, evinced in your humble and ob'd't sv't a damned nearly irresistible desire to stuff my mouth to overflowing with mashed potatoes, run up to the first PH student I see, and violently extrude the whole load in his face: "Get it? I'm a zit!"

The drive to the grocery takes me past Patrick Henry. This somnolent time of year, "the men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding" are to be found on the campus quad playing a suspiciously polite game of Ultimate. Well, no, hold on, it's only the fellas. The women aren't much in evidence, which would follow because they're inside convincing each other that "committing to Christ" is like "sticking to a long-term business plan," and that business plan emphatically does not include the sweaty torsos and dewy loins of the breathless boys. They're laboring to take to heart the nine-page e-mail sent out to the entire student body by one of the (male) students this year: “Lust is sin. It is sin for you to tempt us. It is...unloving. Unsisterly. Un-Christlike.”

I'm glad to see that the future of Christian rape counseling is in such capable hands. You'll enjoy being succoured by such a fine, empathetic mind, ladies. Welcome to it. What a catch!

Says Rosin:

Girls talk about not “stumbling” a guy, the equivalent of tempting him, and resident advisers keep a close eye on them to make sure they don’t wear shirts that show any bra. If they do, they’ll get a friendly e-mail—“I think I saw you in dress code violation,” followed by a smiley emoticon.... Smoking, drinking, and “public displays of affection in any campus building” are forbidden. Matthew du Mée, who was an R.A., told me that if he saw a boy and girl sitting too close for too long he would pull the boy aside and tell him to stop, because “the guy is supposed to be the leader in the relationship.”

[A momentary digression, if I may. The chink in the armor of the Christly home-schooling cult -- and cult is exactly the right word for it -- is the women. If you were to set up a table at the nearby Giant supermarket offering Deprogramming Services to Patrick Henry coeds, business would, I'm certain, boom. These girls know damned well what's being done to 'em, and at least half of 'em won't stand for it if they see any kind of alternative that doesn't make 'em think they're headed straight for Hell. They're not stupid, just enslaved.]

Wistfully, I close my eyes and conjure up the future Misty Memories that these youngsters will enjoy years from now: the awkward home-schooled maladroit's dread of using the wrong fork at the Liberty Ball, (whee doggies, that looks like a good time!) or at the annual school Hoedown at which the rigidly sexless student body, glass tubes firmly inserted, mills about drinking decaffeinated apple cider, noshing saltless popcorn and scrupulously ignoring the 800-pound gorilla glowering in the middle of the room.



It's the goddamned Omega House. An eternal, ceaseless, permanent Omega House, where extravagant displays of the prissiest, most nauseating virtue are rewarded with (let's not beat around the bush) status, favor and privilege. Which in Real Life means Money.

An Omega House, that is, that has managed to completely eradicate the Deltas from the face of the earth. Expelled. Double Secret Probation. Dean Wormer Triumphant. Thank you, Lord, may I have another?

A house that's all Apollo and no Dionysus just can't stand. It must collapse. And collapse it will, spewing forth all the deeply repressed libido and id that it built up inside, like mashed potatoes in Bluto Blutarski's mouth.

Particularly since the 2004 election, the bastards have managed to nullify our most potent weapon: our sense of humor. Goddamn it, under most circumstances, we are the funny people. We use satire, sarcasm, ridicule -- merciless, pitiless ridicule -- to expose the ludicrous and risible pieties of the Omega House. Would Hunter have left Patrick Henry College's lawn untorched? Hoffman? Zappa? Al Jaffee's Private Doves?

The first order of business is to nip that goddamned Ultimate thing in the bud. These little bastards are NOT ALLOWED to play Ultimate Frisbee. That is OUR game, and they are NOT WELCOME to it. Henceforth, when I drive past them, they will be reminded by a leather-lunged heckler that Junior Fascists do not play Ultimate. They need to be TOLD.

But that's only a drop in the bucket. What needs to happen, what desperately needs to happen, is a cataclysmic prank, something so truly desperate & weird that the little androids will be absolutely convinced that the End Truly Is at Hand, something that permanently fucks with their well-ordered little Apollo-minds and declares the triumphant return from exile of Bacchus to Purcellville.

Bluto: Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no!

Otter: [whispering] Germans?

Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.

Bluto: And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough... [thinks hard] the tough get goin'! Who's with me? Let's go! [runs out, alone; then returns] What the fuck happened to the Delta I used to know? Where's the spirit? Where's the guts, huh? "Ooh, we're afraid to go with you Bluto, we might get in trouble." Well just kiss my ass from now on! Not me! I'm not gonna take this. Wormer, he's a dead man! Marmalard, dead! Niedermeyer -

Otter: Dead! Bluto's right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part.

Bluto: We're just the guys to do it.

D-Day: Let's do it.

Bluto: LET'S DO IT!!

I am willing to entertain suggestions.