Editor’s note: The following is a satirical article for The DisreGuardian, a series of articles published annually for The Guardian’s April Fool’s issue. Features will resume publishing normal content next week.
Attending UC San Diego is a hauntingly familiar experience. Despite having an incredibly large population of 40,000 students, being a student here is exactly like a small high school nightmare. The reason? Bullies. UCSD is littered with multiple congregations of them, patrolling the campus looking for new victims. Whether they’re stealing dining dollars from freshmen or forcing art students to do STEM work, no one is safe from their wrath.
So, today, I ate lunch alone in the bathroom stall, a single tear rolling down my face. The bullies don’t patrol the bathroom, making it the perfect spot to avoid them. I chose to go to RIMAC — sorry, LionTree Arena — since the private layout allowed me to bask in my sorrow.
Suddenly, I heard the coordinated steps of a large body of people and the commanding, rhythmic slam of a cane upon the tiled floors. Thinking it was the bullies, my reflexes kicked in. I immediately pulled my legs onto the toilet seat, hung my belongings on the hook, and held my sandwich between my teeth. I became invisible.
The footsteps echoed, growing in volume as they approached my stall. I held my breath, hoping they wouldn’t spot me. A frizzy, unbrushed head of gray hair peeked underneath my door then promptly departed. A sense of relief flooded over me as I had escaped undetected.
“Nobody is in here. Lock the doors.”
“Yes, King.”
My fear momentarily subsided. I inched upward and poked my head over the stall, my eyes just breaching the boundary. Through the reflection of the mirror between the opposing stretch of sinks, I saw King Triton. He pounded his triton, commanding the five other women in the bathroom to give their full attention to him. Adjacent to him was a younger male, definitely a first-year, adorned head to toe with Triton-themed accessories. Think: foam fingers, headbands with unruly neon yellow hair flying from the top, and triton tattoos covering his body. His left cheek sported a teardrop tattoo encasing a triton symbol.
But the most shocking detail of this underground meeting was the protruding vision, openness, and radiating proudness that I witnessed from my stall. Except for the Triton accessories, all of them were completely naked. Yes, even King Triton.
The first-year boy opened a package they had brought, uncovering a supply of temporary tattoos that read, “I Love King Triton,” with the “love” as a red heart. King Triton began swaying, moving his hands and twitching his body into some sort of distinct sign language. The boy translated for him in what I can only assume was a perfect fashion. As he spoke, King Triton did the robot, swung his arms up and down, jumped on the sinks, and splashed water on his face.
“These tattoos will be seen on the butts of all students. They will use the water of the Price Center Fountain to apply them, helping one another like a true student body should.”
Instantaneously, as though pre-rehearsed, the women all replied robotically, “Yes, King.”
“UCSD is not what I envisioned,” King Triton continued. “The students are disconnected, there is no love, no school spirit, just studying and bullies. I — no, we — need to bring about change as a collective. This is a movement like no other — one that will shock the students, stripping them of the identities they believe they wear. No longer will the students rage an internal hierarchy of STEM versus non-STEM majors, no longer will sports games see deplorably low attendance. As we remove our clothes, we remove our perceptions, the masks we wear that divide us and hide the internal truth within. We are all one. We are all Tritons.”
“We must all strip, see each other on an intimate level, and bond beneath the moon with matching bumper sticker tattoos,” he declared. “We will initiate the movement during the Spring Quarter Undie Run. Here, the students are already breaching into nudity — we will take them all the way. The student body will be one, united, spirited.”
“Yes, King,” the women replied.
This speech was incredibly moving, causing a tear to roll down my cheek. I no longer felt fear, but instead, I felt seen — like King Triton understood me. He ended the speech by kneeling, as some sort of surrender of his position as a King, to represent a oneness. My heart pounded in a rhythmic calling. I knew at that moment that my mind and body had been chemically altered. I had been redirected, chosen to join this movement.
I jumped down off of the toilet seat and slammed the stall door open. I paraded toward the King and approached the group, responding with a powerful “Yes, King.” I had become one with them.
King Triton would like to leave readers with a message: This spring, the undie run will be more vulnerable than ever before. We will go all the way and show the world what Tritons are made of, together. During finals week of Spring Quarter, we streak.
