A Bunch of Lemmings

My dorm room sits under a small ledge by a parking lot. Across the parking lot there is an enormous knoll. The hill cascades up at a respectfully steep rate, leaving the hike up and down to be quite difficult - rain or shine.

Today was one of the first sunny days in a while. Perfect, I might say. It was about 63 degrees and the sun was shining brightly outside of the clouds. A small breeze blew the shade from the trees across the plush green grass. Beautiful day.

Naturally, college students just flock to this grassy knoll to sit and read, or perhaps poorly play Jack Johnson on their $250 guitar. Maybe they will toss the frisbee or kick a soccer ball. In the late afternoon there were about 25 collegiates out there. As dinner time rolled around (about 6pm), all - and I really mean all of them - simultaneously packed up their guitars and threw on their flip flops as if mom rang the "come and get it!" bell. I had the ultimate pleasure of watching all 25 or so slowly make their way down the steep slope. The greatest satisfaction of this event was that they had no idea that the rain from the day before was still making its way down the hill and into the parking lot. The hill was quite damp, to say the least.

One by one, and in a systematic fashion, men and women alike began to fall on their asses. Like a bunch of lemmings the students were falling down the hill, not learning from their peers falling around them. First the girl in the sunglasses and blue top eats it hard, then the bro in the trucker hat is taken out while his friends giggle. But I would have to say the best was the hat trick: three girls holding hands while walking down the hill all took grass to the ass. The center female slipped causing a chain reaction to hit her supporters. All three fell right on their caboose, and while after falling on her butt, one toppled over on her stomach loosing her sunglasses and small satchel.

In all seriousness I truly think I saw 12 individuals bite dirt on that small but steep incline. I'm sure some of those students could tell me all about first century philosophy or George Washington's opinions on strategic neutrality, but for all the knowledge we pretend to attain and for all the intellect we believe we foster, we're still a bunch of animals.