Reflections on the Revolutions in Binghamton: An Inquiry into the Vicissitudes of the Starry Corporation’s Takeover and its Phenomenological Implications

By Lambreau Demasi III, Esq.

Imagine my shock—my Halloween horror—my delightful fright (defright!)—my unutterable outrage—as on my first day of campus, desiring a chilled beverage capable of quenching my sandblasted throat’s rapacious thirst, I make posthaste entry into the air-conditioned environ of Bartle Library, and descend its asymmetrical staircase to a place of my heart, an old stomping ground, my oasis—the vending machine wall, just to find a discommoding visage: on the machines’ facades, a most terrifying sight—where once stood metaphorical obelisks of the titan of soft-drink vendibles, regaled in rubicund base and frost-white font, now stand edifices of nefarious diabolism, so heinous in their extantness that Satan himself is considering furbishing his demancave (demon-mancave) in Royal Blue (specifically #004B93 in hexadecimal) flames; for remember, son, the flame n’ary burns the worst when red.

This disquieting discovery was enough to contract my pupils with ancient aporia as a tiger does when seeing man-with-spear, and incapacitated me thereunto the nearby modular couch. It comes to my memory that when touring this university and its facilities a president’s term prior, I took pleasurable delight in seeing that our august administration had avoided the pitfall in which I had witnessed in too many other establishments of their ilk cacade: a worship to a false idol in that same oblong-tripartite logo. Now this is not to say I make my decisions on gastronomy contingent entirely upon an eatery’s allegiance of elixirs—it is not beyond my otherwise feeble capacity to otherwise enjoy the occasional Pepsi-Cola. Yet when the site whither I make my morning commute scents deficiency in the confectious libation of my choice, then yeah, I am a little peeved. A mite miffed. A smidgeon scalded. A catnip cantankerous. 

The implications of a missing Coca-Cola Company on campus are worse than they may appear, as Monster Energy, the delectable lifeline of many college undergraduates and graduate students alike, also found itself without a home to call its own. We’ll have to bide our energy needs with the false nutrition of “Rockstar” Energy, may it live in dung and micturition. 

But let me air my grievances further—for many to air there are. I have commuted hither and hence since the prior semester, and let me tell you that above the proverbial ass-blasting that the hefty hole in my wallet and the early-morning headaches the parking permit and its consequences gave me; nothing is less pernicious than the sheer sounding I received resultant of my corneas’ deception in attempting to turn into Hinman’s Lot L, just to see that the former egress had been astroturfed by a new green. Much like the primitive Photoshop provided to Stalin’s pillow fluffers when he presumed their antiquation, where stood progress—the great asphalt drive— was now replaced with but a live grass fault. 

Yea, must we drive around in revolutions to find any sort of commuter parking, usually to no avail. Thus, I give up—hang up my towel, and make my way to Lot M, to the least-convenient of the parking lots. To me, this is unforgivable and shrieks that there is something very very wrong here. Lot L’s live grass fault, as I so eloquently dubbed it, was commissioned in order to provide another row of handicap parking spots along the perineum of Hinman. Yet, while I suffer to find a spot located strategically close to my 18th Century Clown Studies class in the Fine Arts building, these phantom invalids never once occupy their designated spaces. Methinks there’s a grander conspiracy going on here.

Hark! For if this were the breadth of my disquietude I would be one chafe caviler, but heretofore I was but a callow moppet and must amend my scaphing sleighride to an irascible automobile adventure; for, say, if perchance, periodically, I find myself dilatory to portend the premises as insufficient-in-capacity, I am certain to espy the place-de-parque-habituel as impenetrable, but one alternative breaches mine palace-de-esprit that I fail to foil: I mean to convey that far-flung badland abutting that dastardly, loathsome gymnasium-and-vincinal-hippodromulette-configuration, whose perambulation to the proper catechist edifices is protracted, incontrovertibly so! For shame, you deleterious desk-jockeys in administration! For shame! Peradventure you might apply for this institution, believe you me, I prescribe you to rescind that thought, lest you fancy yourself a masochist of the highest order!