March 23, 2011

What’s up Chuck?

Cord alum and TV writer Chuck Tatham provides students with a “Handy guide” to navigating campus in his column, originally published Feb. 2, 1984.

Go past the escalator, down to the hall on the right. Go down the hall, and into the computer terminal room. Yell “IMMIGRATION” at the top of your lungs and watch people scatter. What fun.

Go back out to the main hallway, and enter the infamous “Eileen Stumpf Concourse.” Eileen is the only nice and sincere person in the entire Concourse. She sells the donuts. Everyone else stands around smoking, looking like their gauchies are too tight, and generally acting as if they are God’s gift to Laurier.

Continue straight through the Concourse and through the next set of doors. On your left are the stairs up to the TV Lounge/Games Room, and further up on the right is the hall that takes you to that den of iniquity known as Wilf’s.

If you decide to go up to the TV Lounge, wear ill-fitting rayon pants and carry as many cans of pop and bags of chips as is humanly possible. Sit in the the TV Lounge and ram all the aforementioned food into your mouth while watching seven hours of soap operas and muttering things about Luke Spencer to yourself. Maintain an appearance of complete unattractiveness at all times; this is mandatory TV Lounge deportment.

If on the off chance you journey into the Games Room, swear loudly and hit inanimate objects such as video machines. Try the “IMMIGRATION!” line if there is a long line-up at your favourite machine. Eat more chips, drink copious amounts of pop and break out in wide-spreading patches of acne within minutes. Stay there for more than half an hour a day and realize how pointless your existence is.

Run across the way to the Peters Building. Go inside and talk to first-year girls with briefcases and bodies that look like Dick Butkus in public school. Get out of there before someone offers you a job interview or a coffee.

Watch for jealous arties with pipes and jock straps.

Hurry down to the A.C. next. Once there, realize it has nothing to offer, unless you like a building which rivals the Black Hole of Calcutta in aroma.

That’s the tour; hope you liked it!

Tatham graduated from Laurier in 1985 and returned on Mar. 16 to speak about his experiences in Hollywood.