By Silence Doless

Friends, Romans, countryman: we are gathered here tonight to talk about a very important issue, one that threatens all of our plans here at Hofstra. Of course, I am talking about nothing other than fire alarms (I, for instance, planned on sleeping.) Contrary to popular belief, these little, devilish contraptions were not designed to warn people about fires-no, that’s what a burning sensation is for. They were actually built back in 1942 by Hitler (you can quote me on this) to warn him when his soldiers were ever having a good night’s rest. This was supposedly done to lose the war.

However a lot has changed since 1942. For instance, the war ended, but lives on forever on the History Channel. Yet, despite the many earth-shattering changes since the early Forties, fire alarms have remained largely the same. Only now you don’t have to be a Nazi to feel its effects. You just have to go to Hofstra.

You know how it goes. You’re asleep in your bed, dreaming about planning a covert infiltration of the Pentagon. There you are in a dimly lit, smoky basement sitting around an old card table with your accomplices: Jake Gripper, the fun-loving diamond thief, Chuck Fitzwinkle, the cold-blooded ex-Navy Seal and Herman Plunkit, gawky thirteen-year-old and best computer hacker who ever lived. Also, there is Bobby Slatzgate, but he doesn’t talk much. You think he might be a spy or a crocodile in disguise. Either way, you can’t trust him, and decide to ignore him. So you’re talking to everyone and laying down some serious plans.

“Jake, you drop down through the east skylight and open the back doors,” you say. By way of response, Jake steals your diamonds in a fun-loving way.

“Chuck,” you continue, “you get in through the back door and knock out the guards posted outside the computer control room. Do whatever’s necessary.” Chuck somehow manages to grin, sneer and look like his kidney is going to explode all at once.

“Now Herman, you know what to do from there.” Herman is far too busy masturbating to Internet porn and having zits to acknowledge you.

“Great, now the only other thing left to do is….” Just then, some jackass barges into the room and starts screaming at the top of his lungs like an air horn. You yell at him to get out, but he just stands there like an obstinate, screaming statue. So you push him out, but he reappears behind you and yells louder. Then you wake up. The jackass’s scream turns into the sound of the fire alarm and your accomplices turns into your roommate trying to wake you up. It’s four a.m.

Muttering sleep-logged curses, you shuffle through the violently flashing panic-lights and out into the freezing night in little more than your underwear. Then your roommate Bobby turns into a crocodile, eats someone and crawls back to a swamp.

Many people blame these uncalled-for fire alarms on raucous, unruly and generally intelligence-impaired students who decide to yank the lever in the middle of the night. Obviously, the people who blame these students forget that Hofstra would have installed ink squirters in the fire alarms, marking whoever pulled it.

So what can we do about these dreaded and seemingly invincible pieces of malicious machinery? Simple: we can stay in bed.

The next time there’s a fire alarm in your dorm, I urge every self-respecting student to just go back to bed. Maybe this time we can finally infiltrate the pentagon.