by writlarge
I am writing this from the layout meeting for this issue of the water tower. Instead of reveling in the depths of our usually packed Google Drive, the top brass (ie me) are scrambling to produce articles just to meet the printing deadline. In our darkest hour, I will kill two birds with one stone, walking our readers through the tumultuous creation of this issue, and filling the gap in the reviews section.
It all started with our first meeting. After a record-breaking ActivitiesFest email list signup performance, our average meeting attendance was nearly quadrupled one Tuesday at 6 pm in Lafayette 111. But maybe, we were just a little too persuasive behind the table, our hubris swelling beyond our logistical capabilities.
Enough articles were pitched to fill almost three issues. At our weekly meeting afterparty, Fall 21 residency located in the Hilton’s Turning Point USA suite, the consensus was that nothing could possibly go wrong. With our new army of genius underclassmen, we would continue to dominate the Burlington satirical student media scene without breaking a sweat.
A week passed, and all that passed through Gmail were the proverbial tumbleweeds of the dozens of scam emails we are constantly inundated with. No one will admit why I think someone was watching porn or torrenting movies while logged in, two of the lowest crimes someone can commit. There’s no leads yet as to who wanked with the account, but that’s a story for another time we have to fill a section.
The next meeting rolled around. A lethal combination of in-person fatigue and a Dr. Dog concert brought attendance crashing back down. Articles were being withdrawn left and right. We were thrown out onto Battery Street by Charlie Kirk’s muscle. We shook our fists at God. The new writers had damned us all.
What happened to these bright-eyed kids is what happens to every water tower writer at some point. It’s very easy to swashbuckle into the meeting and present the pitch you’ve been preparing for the last three days, daydreaming about the 4.6 seconds of anticipatory laughter, maybe Ben will mention he’s super excited to read it, maybe Kelsey will hoot and holler with glee. It’s another thing when you have to write that article after your mandatory research class gives you three days to write a 15 page literature review on one of the most mundane topics of all time.
I don’t blame the prospective staff of the water tower, I blame myself and the others on the council for not enacting our contingency plan of the “Fiverr Only” issue. But I will say that everyone who flaked on an article will be welcomed back to the meeting, but let this article serve as a warning. If you do this again, there is an off chance we will be mildly annoyed for a very short period of time.