Life, as we all know, is a theater of the absurd, an endless stream of stunning indignities that boggle the mind and break the spirit. Here is a short list of this semester’s emerging #WUTs:

Whenever I try to purchase a cold soda on campus, I am compelled to buy a Pepsi, which I assume is good for the Pepsi Corporation and WSC, and further, I am asked to pay $1.91 plus tax, stunningly more than the bandits at zippy marts charge, a sum which I assume is darn good for the Chartwell’s Corporation, but heck I don’t even get to reach for an overpriced Diet Coke, being a Coke Guy #wut

At Wayne State, we call ourselves the “Wildcats,” is that because it’s an alliteration, because it’s not indigenous.

I mean I have seen some scraggly three-legged stray cats in Wayne, smoking cigarettes near storm sewers, and there was once a chicken in the basement of Terrace, and there’s a legion of skunks and Asian beatles who roam the streets each fall, and an occasional ground hog, but never “wildcats,” shouldn’t we be the Wayne State “Grass” or “MIPs” or “Fighting Squirrels” or “People Who Wave In Cars” or something that seems “local?” #wut

MIDNIGHT TO FIVE PARKING BAN #WUT #WUT #WUT

I recently purchased coffee at a local establishment and I was made to use “non-dairy creamer” even though even though this place has “dairy” in its name and I can hear cows and even smell a dairy when I walk outside #wut

Most anything done in Texas #wut

I am trying to navigate myself around campus and there’s this big building near the center of campus called the “library,” and they are digging and building and scarring the earth and building some sort of fortified concrete shelter (is that for a subterranean bunker/command center for the Vice Chancellors and the Board Office??) and as I try to find the least circuitous route to the student center from Connell I first run into a split rail fence and get some splinters in my abdomen, then fall into a chain link fence, and then I trip over some sign from the “Campus Beautification Committee,” a secret and vaguely Soviet sounding group who seems concerned with my patting down the grass with my little feet as big cranes ravage the grounds just to my left #wut

THE ROYALS IN THE WORLD SERIES #WUT #WUT

“Sexy Ebola Nurse” costumes for Halloween #wut

I just got an e mail about some “employee handbook,” I don’t know where it came from, I’m not even quite sure who the e mail was from, but it says I have to report to the secretaries, my Chair, my Dean, the Lord Jesus, and Janelle from “Teen Mom 2” whenever I miss a class, or my office hour, and when I do, that means technically under Board rules I missed the entire 8 hour work day, even though of course I didn’t, this scares me and so I just don’t leave my office and I stay under my desk, but then I miss class and I have to call Jesus and John Neihardt and #wut

Getting charged as a student for “criminal trespass” for being on the roof of the … student center #wut

The Main Street stop lights #wut

Yik yak and its obsessions with “morning wood,” “yoga pants” and “cuddle buddies” #wut

This “column” #wut