Bobbing for Nasty

I just got back to my soggy apartment from a grad student senate meeting. Yep, I do the student government thing. My life is small and sad...I know. Ooh - the lights are flickering here. Guess I'll bust out the candles, which could be fun if I had company other than my cat and a book.

Which I don't.

Most of what we do on the senate is approve how to spend the graduate student activity fee. We could do more, but then we could also unionize. Both would require a graduate student/assistant body that isn't so abysmally taken in by the higher education version of the "american dream" myth. That's a rant for another day.

So occasionally the grad senate gets to do something to make life better for grads on campus; sometimes we get to sit on various committees and be board shitless just like faculty and other "real" employees; but mostly we just keep the books and mind the till. You want cash for your nerd party on my campus? You come to us. Since it's Halloween season, we are currently seeing a lot of requests for halloween parties from various departmental grad organizations. Tonight's big expense was the Physics department grad student halloween party. On the list of expenses were black plastic cauldrons for bobbing for apples.

This bothered me. I said I wasn't a libra...it's times like this when the virgo in me comes blaring through. And I sat there thinking OH GOOD LORD THAT IS DISGUSTING!

People still do this? Grown up people bob for apples? People with colds, people with halitosis, people with herpes, people who know about other people having those things? I'm all for some degree of swapping of bodily fluids with screened partners. Smooching is a wonderful thing indeed. But I can't imagine lining up with 20 complete strangers to plunge my my face into a bucket (no, cauldron) of spitty water to try to grip a slobbery apple in my teeth! Ugh! What are these nerds thinking? They have got to get out more often if this really sounds like fun to them.