Whether you’re there to worship our Lord in the early morn or you’re there for equally above-board business on Saturday nights, there’s no doubt that the Cochran Chapel, and specifically its pews, is the spot on campus. So it came with much surprise on Thursday when Robert “Bob” Bilder, Head of the Department of Additions and Slippery Spots, amateur basket weaver, and local fly-fishing champion, announced that the hallowed, sacred, untouched, unscathed, completely clean, hygienic pews, would be outfitted with trap doors — each leading to a shark tank.
Bilder wrote in an email to The Phillipian, “Sometimes you just gotta ask yourself, ‘Why not?’ I mean seriously, we struggle to spend that billion-dollar endowment. Do you know how much it takes to fill up the whole budget of the (useless) additions department? Why do you think the library’s gone next year? For renovations? HA! Suckers, I won a bet with Mr. Palfrey, so the library is actually going to be turned into one giant ball pit (which will be available for birthdays and weddings). Also, kids kept sneaking in, but mostly because I’m a bored, lonely man.”
Eager to show us the Pews 2.0, Bilder scouted a location from the balcony room above the chapel — you know the one, with its ample room and cushioning — and had us lay waiting as an unsuspecting couple entered the pews. As the two students sat down, the ground suddenly opened from beneath them as they became shark snack — and not the good kind we’re all thinking about. Bilder considers this yet another successful usage of school funds to prevent the blossoming of adolescent love.
