With the pleasant spring weather, and a few crucial recent rainstorms, the annual squirrel storage workshop was long overdue by the time it was announced — and spontaneously carried out — on Tuesday, May 14.
It started the same way it always does. The albino squirrel, occupying a similar role as the pope but for squirrels, comes out at dawn and tests the squishiness of the soil in the center of the Bald Spot. Once it has been declared perfectly diggable, a frenzy ensues for the next 30 minutes as the squirrels all band together to rouse a random selection of 200 freshmen. Once these freshmen are awake, they are told to put their shoes on and grab one essential prized possession the size of a mug or smaller.
The next step in the process involves blindfolding the students and leading them through the lower Arb, stopping intermittently to spin them around a little. Any students discovered to be in possession of an iPhone are thrown in the pond. Eventually, the procession reaches a field deep in the Arb, where the squirrels have been working to dig 1,000 small holes all morning. The students’ blindfolds are removed, and the next step is where the magic happens — the burial of items.
Each student swaps items with someone they haven’t met and then buries the new item. Afterwards, everyone works together to fill all the holes with dirt, and then has the opportunity to place a flag over where they think their possessions are.
The albino squirrel explained, “It’s a really good bonding exercise. It’s like when I bury nuts for my girlfriend in random spots across campus and don’t tell her. It’s a nice surprise for her, and she never says anything, but they do disappear. Ultimately, all of these students have way too much stuff. The lesson of this workshop is that if you really love something, you’ll dig up a whole field to find it again, and if you don’t, it’s probably not worth bringing to college, where you just don’t have that space.”
However, not every student was so happy with the event. Isaac Kofsky ’27 said, “Well, if I had known what we were doing, I wouldn’t have picked such a prized possession. Now it’s going to decompose, and that’ll be a whole thing. How am I meant to find that again? Also, they literally kidnapped us.” An international student who wished to remain anonymous overheard this and added, “I am worried about not being able to find my passport again. Will I ever go home?”
Nonetheless, the squirrels were unaffected by these complaints and criticisms. One, known as Mrs. Serena Squirrel, said “They should appreciate that their friends bury things for them. Kids these days are so ungrateful. I mean, all I ever do is ask my boyfriend to bury the nuts I collect, and he always says no, and then I see him digging at the bottom of trees 24/7, and I just know he’s burying some other lady squirrel’s food that she collected. But I really do love him, and I don’t know what to do.”
It is not entirely clear at this time whether this event constitutes a legitimate kidnapping or not, though the squirrel council assures the Carletonian that they have President Byerly’s full support and very strong legal counsel. In the opinion of Ro Dent, a member of the squirrel council, “the burying will happen every year for the rest of time. When there are no more students, when there’s no more college, when there’s no more Northfield and no more Minnesota, we will find your young and we will bury their stuff and we will evade legal persecution. You will never stop us. Soon all of this continent will be a graveyard of trinkets.” Dent refused to comment further on the storage workshop, only muttering something about “snowflake students” before going quiet. Finally, Dent was asked about the perceived drama regarding the albino squirrel and Mrs. Serena. He seemed confused, then stated, “all I know is, I’m friends with the albino squirrel, and he’s a great guy who would never cheat. In fact, he’s a great friend — he knows how rough things have been since my wife left, and every day I see him burying food for me in places where we used to go. Really a wonderful couple, actually, and I hope they work it out.”