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.
In a press release last Friday, UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla announced that the school will soon begin constructing six on-campus Mattress Firm stores, all set to open in Fall 2026. The stores will replace Pines, Middle of Muir Cafe, John’s Market, the Muir Quarterly office, Taco Villa, and Roots — all of which will be closed by the end of this academic year.
“These students get so angry about everything that happens at their school,” Khosla said in the press release. “They’re all, ‘Oh, stop diverting resources from print media,’ or ‘Oh, I’m vegetarian; where am I going to eat now?’ I think what they really need is a good night’s sleep.”
The past year’s mass closure of dining and gathering spaces across campus is no coincidence. According to Dee Veyous, the recently appointed vice chancellor of Plots and Schemes, university officials held a closed-door meeting with representatives from Mattress Firm in Fall 2025. Veyous shared that, following this meeting, the school began closing “all those unnecessary ‘third spaces,’ or whatever the kids are calling them these days” in favor of “a lucrative deal that is sure to benefit everybody.”
Although the University did not ask for student input when making this decision, Veyous is confident that the six mattress stores will have a positive impact on student life.
“Aside from being a smart financial move for the longevity of our institution, we also hope that this partnership will benefit students by giving them easier access to mattresses,” Veyous said. “So, if you’re living in John Muir College, for example, then, sure, you’ll have to walk 10 minutes to get to the closest market or dining hall — but you’ll have six mattress stores right there!”
Students like second-year Anita Slepe suspect that the motivation for this partnership is related to Mattress Firm’s longstanding money laundering allegations.
“Think about all the buildings on this campus that students never give a second glance,” Slepe said. “What better place than UCSD to open a bunch of fronts for a money laundering scheme? These stores are gonna be the next Campus Bike & Skate.”
Other students expressed discontent not with the decision itself, but rather with the locations of the new stores.
“Man, open a hundred mattress stores — I don’t give a [s—],” fourth-year Irene Diana Georgia Anne Frerguson said. “This campus is a goddamn mystery to me. I just wish they could’ve taken the Starbucks or something, and not the only remaining places here with any personality.”
