Dean Boyer to challenge the Gods
By Mark Boykin
Feb. 24, 2013
John W. Boyer, Dean of the College at The University of Chicago, has challenged every major and minor deity who exerts influence over natural phenomena to a free-for-all bare-knuckle boxing match for control over Chicago’s weather, to be held at Ratner gymnasium this vernal equinox.
The Dean announced his intention to personally “box into submission every god or goddess who will step up to the plate” in a College-wide email. In the thirty-two paragraph missive, the Dean detailed his frustrations with the assorted gods and goddesses’ management of this plane of existence’s weather systems. “Mid-50s weather, with no windchill, in January?” complained Dean Boyer, “It’s like you guys aren’t even paying attention to our established weather traditions! I could manage Chicago’s weather systems in a manner that isn’t all higgledy-piggledy; under my leadership, we’ll have the freezing Chicagoan weather we all need!” He ended his long string of complaints with the promise that he would “roar [his] formal declaration of superiority to the skies of Miðgarðr later today, on the Quad.”
Indeed, second-year student Carla Vasquez told us that the 66-year old Dean did indeed stride confidently from his secret Harper office to the center of the quad, tilt his head exactly 45° up, and scream his challenge (and several obscenities) to the skies. He then pointed at a particularly dark cumulonimbus cloud and shouted, “I know you’re in there, Zeus! Come down and take your lumps, or give us the weather that we rightfully expect!” The Contender then walked back to his office, reportedly muttering, “The nerve… my jimmies are so rustled right now.”
The campus is buzzing with excitement at the prospect of Dean Boyer-endorsed weather, and support for his attempt to usurp the gods’ control over nature seems unanimous throughout the campus. Third-year geophysical sciences major Louise Brandt expressed her frustrations regarding the current weather administration to The Dealer, saying that she walked outside last month, wearing five coats “as any reasonable person would do in January, here,” and was confused and annoyed by “the lukewarm and sweat-inducing failure that the gods had the gall to call Chicago weather”. “You know what I want from my weather administration? Freezing gusts and the threat of being buried alive in snow; at least I can plan for that! My wardrobe’s winter-exclusive! What am I supposed to do: throw out all twenty pairs of long-johns?”
If anybody knows how to contact the gods for a statement, then please email the Shady Dealer at [email protected] We tried [email protected] and [email protected]; these addresses belong to bodybuilders.
