Beginning at the start of March and set to continue through Carnival, the Carnegie Mellon campus staff has been mulching the grass along pathways on the Cut. One anonymous student had this to say last Friday:
“It smells like Rashid Auditorium, but like, everywhere.”
Experts at The Tartan say that the smell is caused by a sizable presence of fecal material in the mulch itself, meant to act as fertilizer for newly-planted grass. The university has since declined to comment on the brand of fertilizer used, or on its contents, claiming only that students should be glad at the “cost-efficiency” of what has been coined “Operation Grass is Greener.”
In other possibly-related news, recent postings on Handshake — a popular, school-sanctioned job-search platform — reveal that President Farnam Jahanian plans to reinvest these saved costs rather quickly. The contractual listing asks for a plumber, “classically trained,” to perform undisclosed maintenance tasks for the president’s private bathroom on the top floor of Warner Hall. The role is slated to last until the end of April, and is labeled “urgent.”
Insider sources close to Jahanian have since commented on the state of the fabled “President’s Throne,” speculating that the diamond-crusted bidet attachment, or even the electronic lumbar support, could perhaps be on the fritz.
Jackson Ebert, an undergraduate student in the Pre-Law program, has another theory:
“I’ve staked out Jahanian’s offices, both here and at his house in town, for the last week,” said Ebert. “From Sunday to Saturday, he DoorDashed exactly 13 meals. Monday was a spicy chicken and bean bowl from El Gallo. Tuesday was… the same thing, actually, and so was Wednesday, and… wait a minute…”
While it may be initially confusing as to why anybody would ever purchase anything from El Gallo de Oro with real money, students should nevertheless ready themselves for an uptick in strange scents emanating from campus lawns. The shades on Warner Hall’s uppermost floor have been drawn for long hours well into the night, while landscaping trucks wait silently in the rear parking lot.
“Something is coming,” replied an anonymous Cyert Hall janitorial worker. “I’ve seen it in the probabilities. I don’t know what it is, but it sure smells foul enough. I’ve half a mind to quit tomorrow, but hey — the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.”
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