I have recently spoken with a number of Dartmouth graduates about their post-pong career choices. After several discouraging descriptions in which an alarm clock goes off at 6 a.m., I began to notice a disturbing pattern: Dartmouth graduates don't seem to pursue modeling careers. Why is that? Is it because our Ivy League brains have evolved beyond the capacity of our foreheads, creating an unattractive bulge that cast a shadow over the eyes, thereby eliminating the possibility of scintillating job opportunities such as colored contact lens model or "Maybe It's Maybeline" mascara model?
No, that can't be it, because some people at Dartmouth do wear colored contact lenses. And why would they bother, unless every time they attempted to make electric eye contact with that special someone across a crowded fraternity basement, they could be sure that the object of their gaze would think, "Gee, what naturally brilliant willow-green eyes she has." Who would pay for these expensive lenses if an obtrusive brow bone hid them from view? Dartmouth students don't just throw around money; they are actually quite frugal. The proof is in the beer: would big spenders actually buy the Beast? I think not.
So bad beer at parties means we do not have big foreheads. Great. That leaves us with only two possible causes for the model drought: one, agencies recruit at Wesleyan when they need models with dreadlocks; or two, Homeplate dining hall packs on the pounds where beer calories cannot, making it impossible for modeling scouts to count bones and quickly convert that number into a score that reflects the individual's modeling ability. Since dreadlocks are generally frowned upon in the modeling world (they put hairdressers out of jobs and pose a threat to general health and well-being), I am going to have to go with theory number two.
Now, I imagine many of you are getting ready to turn the page at this point. You're thinking, how could Homeplate, the "healthy" dining hall, possibly jeopardize the careers of the hundreds of potential swimsuit models roaming our campus? I must be delusional, or at least severely dyslexic; I must have meant the Hop. Well, go on and turn the page -- read the sports section -- but I bet I can tell you what you'll learn: football lost, women's hockey won and the swim team is still angry.
What I'm about to say here is not quite so predictable. I want to expose the falsehood behind the rumor that whispers through the pines around campus, rings from the bell tower, bounces to the beat of ping pong balls in the basements and finds its way into the ears of freshman girls during orientation. That is the rumor that Homeplate desserts are low-fat. Sure, they taste low-fat. The cookies remind one of stale cake batter and the muffins have cranberries in them. But have you ever looked at the size of these offensive treats? That cookie is as big as my grandfather's goiter. By the time you've combined it with frozen yogurt and topped it all off with the crushed Oreos that are conveniently placed nearby, you're better off licking the excess oil from a Ramunto's delivery bag.
The fact is, Homeplate is part of a conspiracy designed by the Dartmouth College Department of Fun Facts to keep the number of postgraduate models down and the number of executive interns up. It attracts any potential model-type bodies with its promises of low-calorie sandwich meats at the deli and then slaps two pieces of extra-thick bread on either side. The grill cooks the meat for forty-five minutes so that twice as much barbeque sauce is necessary in order to soften it up.
And then at the end, in order to pay for all this food, unsuspecting students are funneled past these lower-fat, mutant desserts on their way to the register, making them as irresistible as the tabloids at the supermarket which promise that Ben Affleck was abducted by aliens and robbed of his self-respect and decency after proposing to Jennifer Lopez.
My advice? Boycott false advertising. Go to Food Court, keep Larry and Mitsy in business, and use that infamous center aisle that runs through tables of hungry football players as practice for the catwalk. Make us proud; make "swimsuit model" a category in Dartmouth statistics. Because even if, after all this, it still doesn't work out for you, there's always corporate finance.
