So long and thanks for all the fits

As I type my final words for the Indiana Daily Student, I have to say I’m disappointed in you, women of Bloomington. Not once in my time here has any journalism groupie approached me at a party and offered an obvious come-on like, “I wonder how big your pencil is.” I’ve seen “Californication”; aren’t your panties supposed to drop as soon you hear someone’s a writer?

Duchovny lied to me.

Sexual conquests aside, I’ve been amazed at how long you folks have let me write my insane thoughts to you every week. Do you want to create an egomaniac? Just give him a regular column and tell him that every single member of the campus reads it regularly.

Don’t let him know that many copies end up lying on the floors of lecture halls or used as paper for joints (smoking the ink gives you a unique add-on high best described as “Ernie Pyle just blew my mind”).

What’s been interesting is that most compliments on the column came from personal e-mails, while the comments usually looked like they came from “Mad Libs for Angry People.”

I think that means I have a secret society of supporters, fearful to speak in public. Understood. The Chad Quandt Fan Club/Orgy will have its first meeting at my apartment this weekend. The password is “I’m here for the orgy.”

There are still so many things I wish I could have discussed with you all: why prostitution should be legal so I can pay off my loans, how the pedestrian habits in Bloomington would get you hit by a car in any major city or why Zooey Deschanel should run away with me. Maybe there’s a reason my editors kept those columns from being published.

Despite these four years of college, the only truth I am absolutely sure of is that we’re all trying to shout our individual voices out into the ether.

Some do this with snide remarks, some write on Pitchfork, others make a quilt out of the skin of people they’ve killed. I chose to write a column.

There is enough random, unchecked information out there on the Internet that you can prove any point you want with “evidence.” Somewhere there’s a chart that “proves” the cat population in a city is related to how many miscarriages there are.

By no means did this opinion column contain any authority, and I doubt anyone assumed there was. But thank you to those who joined in the discourse.


Email: cquandt@indiana.edu