Mount Union's Greatest Foe

There is an enemy on the horizon at Mount Union. They are growing in numbers, and they are coming for us. For a while, they have been naught but an inconvenience, but their growing presence threatens every one of us. They are much closer than John Carroll, and they are much more annoying. Geese are the worst. What kind of bird honks? It’s not cute; it’s annoying. Geese aren’t cars, they’re birds. They think they own the place, just strutting their stuff, blocking off sidewalks from time to time and defecating everywhere. It’s not even just Mount Union where geese are problems. They can be found in large packs moseying across busy streets, thinking they’re on top of the world. Well they’re not. Their little parades are inconveniences to everyone. It’s like they like being the scum of the bird species. I tried interviewing one of these geese to see why they are the way they are, but I never had much luck. For the amount of honking they do, geese are surprisingly nonconfrontational. Getting near almost any goose results in it waddling away. Then there are the ones that don’t. I would try striking up a conversation and set up some common ground between me and the foul fowl, but it became clear that geese do not know English very well, and I don’t know Portuguese, so we had to overcome the language barrier. I never got anywhere with the honks and occasional hisses. Sometimes, the goose I would interview would get annoyed at my questions and chase me away. It was incredibly rude. On only one occasion was I lucky enough to have something resembling a quaint conversation. The goose I walked up to didn’t waddle away, didn’t hiss, and didn’t charge at me with its wings splayed out. It was all going well until I realized that this goose looked very different from the others. It sounded different, too. After I heard I few quacks, I realized I was talking to an imposter. Very crestfallen, I called the interview session a bust. It has become clear over the years that the geese don’t plan on going anywhere. To me, their numbers have seemed to grow since I was a freshman. The geese will only cause more grievances, never terribly serious, but just enough that they can ruin days. There is a saying that if mess with the honk, you get the bonk, but it is getting quite close to the time that we will need to bonk back.