What's Up With that Hole Outside my Dorm?
Listen, Blog Readers. When I first pitched this article, I thought it was going to be simple. I thought I was going to look at some holes around campus, inform my readers, contemplate their existence, imagine what may be inside, etc. For reference, this is the email I wrote with my article idea for this week.
That winky face had no idea what was coming, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Allow me to backtrack to the history of this story, what inspired me to undertake any of this journey at all: The Emwool Hole. Now, what's the Emwool Hole? The answer is that is trickier than you think. It began as an unguarded hole absolutely large enough to fall into. From what I could see, it was deep enough that the drop could hurt a bit too. However, it pains my journalistic integrity to admit I never was able to get close enough to truly approximate the depth. Now, you might be wondering why this unfortunate truth is the case. That's a good start to the detective-like determination you're going to need to make it through this case. Why didn't I get closer? Because, reader, that hole has been billowing steam for the past few days.This part should be where I attach the first picture of the hole, but I can't do that quite yet. Before I had the chance to write this article, photograph my discovery, and share my findings with all of you, this appeared in the Facebook meme group.
My hole had been hijacked. Not only had my steaming hole been hijacked, but it had been stolen by a friend who I had told about my article at lunch on the fateful day that this event was posted. Of course, I had to confront him.
He didn't seem to understand the full extent of what he'd done. Devastated, I took a day off from my mission. However, I came back fully dedicated to my mission to be the first to truly understand what the deal with that hole outside my dorm was. 8:30am, I walked down from the third floor of Emwool ready to confront the steam pit. How could I have anticipated the next obstacle in my way?
Someone, literally who knows who, put a giant fence and a wooden board around my hole. At this point, it's somewhat impossible to think a higher power isn't looking down and laughing at me. The wooden board isn't even completely covering the hole.
As you can see, plenty of steam is still rising out from the depths of the Earth. Nothing is making sense anymore. Why are there cones inside the fence? What help could they possibly give from there? Before, the steam hole was a fun little Emwool quirk like our gross lounges and semi-private bathrooms. Now, I'm left to wonder: is my local steam pit dangerous?I waited around for a bit, trying to see if the mystery people who put up the fence would come back and answer my questions. They didn't. It started to rain.With no one around to provide answers, I had to come up with my own conclusions. Here's a list of what my research has thus far led me to believe this hole to be.
- 'Normal' construction work (least likely hypothesis)
- Tunnel to Hell
- Speakeasy-style sauna
- Origin point of this week's fall humidity
- Smoke signal from trapped cave dwellers and/or aliens
- Abandoned smoke machine just trying to have a good time.
I can't confirm which one of these is correct, but I'm 100% certain that one of them has to be. The rest is up to you, Blog Readers. Go forth and figure out what's up with our local steam pit. Images via Alisa Caira '22