Chris McCrittle ’11 smiled as he stepped onto the MiddleofNowhere Community College campus. He adjusted his glasses, double-checked that his pants were tucked neatly into his socks and sauntered to his first class. McCrittle recalled, “I remember feeling like a young Anakin Skywalker en route to my first Jedi Council: juvenile but ready to confront the intergalactic challenge that lay before me.” Upon entry to the classroom, however, McCrittle, a recent Exeter Grad and fourth generation legacy at MiddleofNowhere, stopped dead in his tracks. Instead of sitting at one of Exeter’s beloved, oval Harkness tables, McCrittle was expected to learn long division at what he first referred to as an “orthogonal monster.”
McCrittle is one of the many members of Exeter’s Class of 2011 struggling to acclimate to a Harkness-less college environment. Seldy Queally ’11, who recently matriculated at The Boston Arts School for Clowns, has also struggled to cope with the drastic change. She sobbed, “I’d heard they didn’t have Harkness tables in the outside world, but I never really believed it!”
Like her peers, Queally has been most perturbed by the “pointiness” of her new educational facilities. Numerous graduates have complained that the sharp corners of square tables are “dangerous,” and many have been sent to their respective health centers due to serious injuries.
Queally said, “It is simply unsafe to allow these despicable quadrilaterals near Exeter grads. We Exeter students are like peaches: we bruise easily and have an affinity for Super Mario.”
Subtle gaming references aside, Queally’s disdain for pointy classrooms captures the universal dissatisfaction and fear felt by her fellow Exeter grads across the nation. Through extensive therapy, however, Queally has become open to tables of all shapes, or what many are calling “wood from every corner.”
Various other students have sought out different forms of emotional catharsis to adapt to a right-angled learning environment. In an interview, aspiring mime Jonathan Philips ’11, unable to fully express his feelings on the matter, waved his arms frantically while jumping up and down. Similarly, Andrew van der Elst ’11, a lifelong hypochondriac and freshman at The College of Dog Translation, said “Woof woof! Woof woof pointy woof woof woof tables woof!”
Jacob Meister ’64, an instructor at Exeter for 25 years and author of such works as “Dan Brown is an Amazing Writer” and “Mark Zuckerberg: Great Guy,” said, “At Exeter, you see the Harkness philosophy play out on our dorms, in our theater productions, on our playing fields. It’s fun, it’s exhilarating, it’s the way to be.”
After confirming that Meister had in fact plagiarized his statement from the Exeter website, Mr. Meister added, “Yes, if you Google what I just said you would find that I did in fact quote the Exeter website, but that doesn’t mean that Harkness dude was any less of a great guy. I’m actually writing a book on him right now.”
The Exonian at first ignored Meister’s self-promoting non sequitur, but we then decided to explore the root of this Harkness table dilemma: Edward Stephen Harkness himself. In our investigation, we uncovered an astounding never-before-heard quote by the man Exeter students call “the creator.” Harkness said, “The harkness table? Oh right. I remember inventing that. What? The quintessential example of ‘youth from every quarter?’ No! The only reason I created that oval learning device was so that I could have an easier time playing footsie with Sally Stevenson. God she was a cutie. Like a young Gloria Swanson!” And there you have it. The root of current Exeter grads’ strife? The beautiful Sally Stevenson.
