This is the online component of the humor section of the Argus, the Wesleyan University newspaper.

2/1/11

Editors' Note

A note from the editors:

Welcome to the AmperParents issue. We know a lot about parenting, because we totally cooed at My Brightest Diamond’s baby, and because our mothers sent us links to opinion pieces about Amy Chua and her Tiger Cubs. Also, when we were in Aruba that one time—

Never mind. Enjoy the ice, but know your limits.

—Benjamin & Zach

Baby Finds Home in WestCo, Smokes Ganja

Are college students prepared to raise a child? “Why not?” says a group of ambitious WestCo residents who recently adopted a baby from an unspecified country.

“We don’t want to say where Karl-Jacques-Jose-Dmitri Chin-Pa-tel-Kim II ’33 is really from,” explains Atticus Dashiell ’13, P ’33. “Cuz, like, he’s from everywhere—you know?”

The “child of the world” has quickly assimilated to life in WestCo.

“Karl-Jacques-Jose-Dmitri already knows the difference between organic and processed food,” says Kelly Harper ’14, P ’33. “We tried feeding hir a Twinkee the other night, as an experiment, and ze wouldn’t touch it. We’re so proud of hir.”

Other members of the Wesleyan community consider the parent-ing methods of the WesParents rather unorthodox, but the WesParents contend that they have communally decided how best to raise their child.

“I saw Karl-Jacques-Jose-Dmitri smoking a blunt on Foss the other day,” says one Fauver RA. “[Z]e hasn’t even had a birthday.”

Dashiell, on the other hand, contends that Karl-Jacques-Jose-Dmitri is free to “follow hir heart.”

“Furthermore,” Dashiell adds, “ganja helps hir chill out and focus when it’s time for hir Baby Avey Tare.”

Baby Avey Tare is a program developed by WestCo students as an alternative to the popular Baby Mozart series. Karl-Jacques-Jose-Dmitri awarded it a 5.7.

“We don’t want our child to become a mere vessel for vapid pop culture,” says Leonora Hudson ’14, P ’23. “Ze may be only 8 months old, but it’s never too early to learn one very important sentence.”

“Fuck the system,” says Karl-Jacques-Jose-Dmitri Chin-Patel-Kim II ’33.

POV: AmperParents

Letter to the Editors

Dear Editors,

We are very excited to be sending our son, Bartholomew III, to Wesleyan! This is our preliminary shopping list. What else should he bring? Boy, does this bring me back...
  • Smoking jacket
  • Tie
  • Tuxedo
  • Pledge pin
  • Invisible ink (crib notes? good for the ol' GPA!)
  • Fake coin for cigarette machine
  • Large paddle
  • The Douglas Cannon
Any other suggestions?

—Bartholomew James II ’62, P’15

iPhone Conversation

Letter From Louis’s Mom

Dear Wesleyan Office of Admissions staff,

I’m writing this note just to let you all know that the information session I attended was neither informative nor sessionating. My son Louis and I learned not a thing about Wesleyan University. Your WestCo CafĂ© looks like it hasn’t served coffee in years. At least there is a space on campus where my son can contract hepatitis with his friends. I tried to ask an admissions officer about what kind of alternative dining options are available, because Louis has a hormone imbalance? And it’s difficult for him to process certain foodstuffs? Instead, the panel took another question from a concerned dad about what happens if his son, who wasn’t even paying attention, wants to have a roommate. I saw that kid staring at his iPhone the whole time, googling things like “vagina farts torrents download.” Great, Louis could be living with a vagina fetishist; I really wonder what kind of students you’re trying to attract here. An institution of higher education should be focused on actual problems, like why Ziploc bags come already closed. I think Louis put it best when, after I asked him what he thought about Wesleyan, he said to me in a text message during your tedious session, “this place [freaking] makes me want to leave already even after just arriving to it.” Rest assured that you did help us make our decision, re: Louis’s college search. I didn’t really want to send him to an all-girls’ school anyway.

—Louis’s Mom