With students spending more time in their rooms than ever because of COVID restrictions, rumors of a possible new epidemic, one of bizarre behavior, have been raising alarm across campus. One sophomore living in Gregg House, known for its particularly offensive carpet pattern, relayed his observations of a case of the new and mystifying disease, though we cannot independently confirm his account, in compliance with HIPAA. “He’d been sitting in the common room for a few hours, then, all of a sudden, he got really quiet. Before I knew it, he was shaking and trying to dig at the carpet. He was almost, like, foaming at the mouth.”
Accounts of similar disturbing occurrences have swept campus over the past week, causing mass concern. With frustrations rising, many students turned a critical eye to the selection of carpet patterns. “Listen, I appreciate its stain-hiding abilities as much as the next guy,” said freshman Justin Liu, “but come on—there’s only so much WashU can expect us to take, aesthetically speaking.”
Attempts to communicate the problem to school administration proved unsuccessful at first. However, it was soon discovered that those attempts had in fact been foiled when the student mentioned the similarity of this phenomenon to that depicted in the Charlotte Perkins Gilman story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” at which point reports indicate that the administrator would respond, “Oh yeah, I think I read that in high school,” effectively derailing the conversation.