Disaster Drill, Donuts, and Oldenborg
By David Lydon
Opinions Writer

In retrospect, I suppose it's sort of neat that Pomona College's aura of perfect invulnerability wasn't weakened by Monday night's residential disaster drill. After all, how are we to reclaim our rightful title as the happiest place in the universe if we're constantly (well, once a semester) being reminded of the innate vulnerability of humans and their creations? Far better to stay in our rooms, or else arrange to be elsewhere at 7:30 p.m. (the time of the drill), and thus continue an uninterrupted accumulation of added riches, which can then be born in trust for all mankind!

At the time, though, I was a little weirded out by the fact that, as far as I could tell, the Oldenborg part of the disaster drill had something like 20 survivors, several of whom were residence halls staff. It wasn't until 7:33 p.m. when an AIM message from my friend Alicia made me realize that the faux-disaster had begun, and that those faint whistling noises coming from downstairs were actually the nuclear disaster sirens of a horrible apocalyptic future, a future that only the time-traveling intervention of Arnold Schwarzenegger could prevent.

I'm sorry. I think I've mixed our disaster drill up with Terminator. Anyway, here in the real world I almost missed the whistles, which is funny when you consider the fact that Oldenborg doors are actually powerful sound-amplifiers, sucking in sound from the hallway so as to obstruct any attempts to edit your politics paper. But it's fun not to edit your politics paper, and I'm always open to disasters and Krispy Kreme donuts, so Alicia and I sauntered out of Oldenborg toward the Seaver Theatre parking lot, so someone could account for us.

As it turned out, Alicia and I are the only accountable people in Oldenborg, which is going to be a real problem next time something goes wrong. However, there were plenty of donuts for us. Dean Quinley apparently had 50 dozen of them driven in, the idea being, I suppose, that these highly desirable items would stand in for the crude shanties, leather clothes, metal chains, '70s muscle cars, gasoline, and powerful automatic weapons that, according to Hollywood, will be the scarce and contested resources of the post-apocalyptic future.

One of the things that may not wind up being a scarce and contested resource of the future, however, is Oldenborg. This may initially surprise you; it certainly surprised me. After all, the 'Borg is the most solid and invincible structure on campus, and is estimated to be a bajillion times more solid than, say, Smiley. (On the other hand, my notebook is more solid than Smiley, so that's not saying much.) However, I recently received a questionnaire from a mysterious, possibly paramilitary organization, known as the "Oldenborg Task Force," with all sorts of mysterious questions such as "Should Oldenborg remain a dorm?" and "Where should Oldenborg be located on campus?"

Personally, I'm a big fan of moving Oldenborg seven feet to the east, so the nice tree blocking my window will still be visible, but will no longer steal my light. On the other hand, I realize such a plan would be ridiculous. I doubt that's what the OTF is planning, but their questionnaire makes it rather unclear what they are planning, and I'd sort of like some info. Asking whether Oldenborg should be converted into an academic building is a silly question unless you provide some info on what you're going to do with the current residents. They may be transferred to a shining new über-dorm, but it's also possible that they'll wind up being forced to build a post-apocalyptic shantytown on Marston Quad. Actually, given the fact that we already have a shantytown of sorts up by CMC, I'm pretty sure that's what will happen. I guess it serves us right for our lack of disaster preparation.