Terrible Ways to Give Back

Right next to my dorm there’s this community bulletin board where people are encouraged to write ways to give back to the community. Sounds like a sincere attempt to encourage students to do good, right? So, naturally, my first impulse was to spam it with violent, sarcastic, and bizarre suggestions. Luckily, my fear of being publicly humiliated on Grinnell Thumbs Down* has held me back so far, but I figured readers of my blog are probably desensitized enough by this point to endure my really bad ideas for ways to give back:

• Support the U.S. Postal service by sending all your hate mail the old fashioned way!
• Help out a criminal in need by pleading guilty to a crime you didn’t commit!
• Get back at your annoying neighbor by designating their house as a historical site so they can’t alter it and have to put up with idiots walking all over their lawn to read the plaque!
• Turn away from wrongdoers and follow the path of the righteous, for there shall come a time of burning flesh and gnashing teeth when every offense to the heavens must be answered in human suffering!
• Support the good old U. S. of A by illegally selling weapons to Iran in order to fund right wing Nicaraguan insurgents!
• Post inflammatory statements on Grinnell Thumbs Down so stressed-out students can have an easy target to vent their rage at!
• Vote on November 6th, which probably will only be news to you if this bulletin board is literally your only communication with the outside world!
• Donate too much blood!
• Send in terrible applications to Grinnell under multiple false names so our school can rise in the rankings by being more exclusive!
• Destigmatize spitting at people!

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* For non-Grinnellians, Grinnell Thumbs Down is a Facebook group where students post complaints about the school. Students who have left the group seem to have much healthier outlooks on life than those who remain in, though a much less developed understanding of the recent drama-infernos to hit the Grinnell student body.