Satire: English Department’s new building in the Spaghetti Warehouse

theState-Runmedia

Hello, Y/N. Shall I pop the champagne and you light the candles?

The English and Creative Writing Department moves buildings to downtown Tulsa’s abandoned Spaghetti Warehouse

TU surprised students and faculty with changing the center of this usually invisible department, and the consequences of this decision went as expected.

Anna Johns

Became an English major only to receive an insatiable bloodthirst for John Lennon

During the recent English and Creative Writing Department’s Town Hall, faculty confirmed that the department will soon move out of Zink Hall. Like Oxley College of Health Sciences, the English and Creative Writing Department’s new building will be found off campus, where it will host classes and faculty offices. The rumors are true: the English and Creative Writing Department’s new home is now the deserted Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Tulsa.

Students and faculty alike reacted to the news with shock and confusion. First, how could TU buy another building? With what money? Hasn’t the school enough times drained its finances to slather its name on properties?

Another harrowing factor that stirred disbelief is the idea TU administration could have sudden interest in the English and Creative Writing Department or, hell, the no man’s land that is Zink Hall. After all, most English and Creative Writing classes take refuge in other buildings. There’s only the one classroom on Zink Hall’s Third Floor where students practically sit on each other’s laps around a table and watch their professors toy with the chalk board and outdated, sometimes non-functioning technology. Students were familiar with the constant unseen construction projects that required men rushing to-and-fro on the First Floor. And God only knows what happens on the Third Floor. Also, why the Spaghetti Warehouse?

Simple! Administration explained to faculty that purchasing the Spaghetti Warehouse was a cost-effective decision. The long-abandoned building was practically paying us to take it, anyway. Mind, of course, the territorial rat squadrons and the mummified garlic bread corpse; you can already find something similar going on with the oozing slime that slowly gains sentience in the fridge of the Graduate Student Lounge.

Plus, TU Administration reasoned that placing the English and Creative Writing department in an old, dirty restaurant merely gave these worthless non-STEM students a glimpse of their future career prospects.

“We were just happy to receive attention from administration at all,” confessed an anonymous Associate Professor of English. “The idea that we could have better classroom quality and care given to our students was so exciting that we did not realize the glaring issue standing in the way.”

Indeed, a major problem arose that halted any growth or morale boost for the department: the old Spaghetti Warehouse building was dismantled in 2019.

In a statement made to bewildered, concerned faculty and students, TU Administration soothingly replied, “Sorry, we didn’t think people would, like, actually have a problem with this. Aren’t English classes only taken by the underclassmen torturously slogging through their Block One requirements? It’s not like they show up to class all that much, either.”

“We should’ve seen this coming,” said junior English major Sarah Samson. “After all, Chapman Hall is still practically unusable for people who use wheelchairs. There are issues with asbestos in a lot of the buildings. Some of my classes don’t have working markers for the whiteboard.”

In other news, TU will offer students majoring in Computer Science and Engineering free iPads for taking notes, a MacBook just because and a ruffle of the hair followed by a lovingly tender kiss on the forehead.

Captain Cane proudly poses in front of the grand opening to the English and Creative Writing Department’s new home. graphic by Anna Johns

TU’s Springfest headliner announced: your mom

Yes, you read correctly. Your mother will headline this year’s Springfest.

Anna Johns

Xbox gamertag, Milfluver2000, is just like the prophecy foretold!

Springfest is an incredibly important annual tradition on TU campus as the event is usually well-attended and well-received— and it’s the only time that students actually pay any attention to whatever Student Association does. Feeling the pressure for this year’s festival, SA tirelessly deliberated and desperately searched for the perfect budgetsaving headliner, and they finally landed on a relatively indie artist to feature: your mom.

Well, your mom reacted with extreme enthusiasm when SA contacted her and offered her the stage. Her price? A glass of “good wine.”

“Just one glass,” she joked, eyes as sparkling as ever, “only one!”

But you and I both know she’ll have more than one glass. She will drink two and will be appropriately modest regarding her alcohol consumption. (When the clock strikes 8 p.m., she will yawn and say that wine makes her sleepy. We will sympathetically nod.)

Your mom will make a big spectacle out of the thing; she’ll call relatives you only see at funerals and ask you a bunch of inane questions about the campus that she has definitely been to before but refuses to remember. Should she bring a coat? Does Tulsa get cold? Oh, whatever, she’ll bring two in case it’s severely frigid or a mild breeze.

For dinner, SA will treat her to the best of their ability. However, she didn’t lobby for weeks to request a pizza beforehand, so she’ll have to make do with the most economic choices for the university. Looks like dinosaur chicken nuggets will be on the menu! (“I remember when my child would eat those every day after I picked them up from elementary school,” she will tell me as she gingerly picks up a Triceratops nugget; I dimly note the exquisite selection. “They were always so…”

She trails off. “So?” I finish.

“Oh, you don’t want to hear an old woman ramble,” she says.

“I don’t see an old woman,” I tell her, placing my hand on hers. “I see a woman. I see you.”

The way she blushes tells me it has been a long time since anyone has given your mother the romantic attention a blossomed flower like her deserves.)

In response to the Springfest announcement, students have been overwhelmingly positive. After all, your mom is pretty popular around these parts, and we’re all excited to hear her stylings for the night. First, she’ll begin with an impassioned criticism of the aesthetic choices in some interior design show on HGTV. Then, to the crowd of adoring fans, she’ll pull out the childhood photos, spending ample time showing the crowd your baby self’s naked body. She’ll top off the occasion with a daring one-sided conversation, maybe this time on Biden and gas prices or how a guy you went to high school with came out as gay. And the next morning, when she wakes in my dorm, she’ll wake up to breakfast in bed.

Posters around campus are scratch and sniff with the sweet, comforting scent of laundry detergent. graphic lovingly by Anna Johns