Yay! After many long months of freezing winds and frigid people scurrying this way and that dressed like the Michelin man, the cold is finally over. Last Friday, as I woke up and looked out my window, I realized something important. Forget the calendar, spring officially starts when girls start to wear tank tops! Looking out my first floor window onto the Redstone green, complete with birds chirping, hippies strolling and girls frolicking, I felt truly awake for the first time in a long while. I breathed the air, feeling it fill my body with a desire for human experience, contact and, of course, girls in tank tops. This time of year, my life is filled with these images, both real and fantastically imagined, whenever I get bored. It’s like the siren mermaids of the Odyssey, whose beautiful voices lured all of the sailors into a trance, unable to work, or even to think of anything other than the beauty of those voices. I can’t learn with this kind of stimulus around me at all times; it’s nearly impossible. Even now, as I write this article in the library, I have to force myself not to be distracted by all of the very studious hotties around me. I loved those tank tops when I was in high school. They provided hours after hours of amazing fantasy material in any and all classes. They woke up that desire for natural pleasures that school tried to wean out of us with florescent lighting and tan paint on the walls. I can’t say I agree with whatever pop band it was that sang the song “I like girls who wear Abercrombie and Fitch,” but I do understand. Those generic, multicolored and accessory-friendly spaghetti-strap tank tops are just what I need to usher in the springtime. They reveal more than enough to spark my fancy, but not so much that there isn’t anything to hope for. They border on mischievous, but still appear proper. They deliver subtle hints to all the males in the area that the pheromones are working; dudes, let’s put them to good work already! In the animal kingdom, bright colors are used to attract animals to one another. When peacocks want some booty, they’ll floss their bright plumage, and hope to lure a mate with their miraculous display of sensorial pleasure. No different are those tank tops to the male species. They remind us what we’re on this earth for. Go forth and procreate, boys, go forth and procreate. Of course, this isn’t the whole story. Most girls will tell you that more than for a mating ritual, they wear the tank tops because of other reasons. Firstly, they say, it’s rather hot and they don’t need to be wearing any excess clothing. Secondly, they say, the spring colors and fashion are just too much fun to pass up. Why must we be objectified just because you stupid guys can’t stop staring at our breasts, they ask. Why can’t we just wear what we want and not have the way we are treated change? We just want to go out and enjoy the springtime comfortably, without being made into the sexual equivalent of a steak dinner. Sure. But guys don’t care about that sort of stuff. We always have our own more base motivations and justifications for how we perceive the world around us, and with the exception of monks and eunichs, most of those quickly revert to booty. Watch a movie on one girl’s courageous struggle with anorexia. Wind up thinking how hot she is. Watch MTV. Find yourself actually paying attention to Avril Lavigne (something no one should ever reduce himself/herself to doing). Why? Because it’s so hard not to, what with her being so sexy and all. Why on earth do you think the “Howard Stern Show” has lasted for so long? The guy’s not funny, but he knows if he gets porn stars to fart on each other, every guy in that precious 18-24-age bracket will tune in. Old guys, too. No matter how dignified, fat and bald we may become, we still can’t resist the lure of ladies. We’re like malfunctioning robots. Seriously, I definitely have some crossing wires when it comes to girls in tank tops. I can’t say I’m down with people farting on one another (porn star or no porn star). But I really can’t think when I see some cute girl walking down the sidewalk next to me with a turquoise tank top from J. Crew or from whichever other brand. Ah, those shirts, handcrafted by twelve-year-old Malaysians, bra straps criss-crossing those of her shirt, hips shaking like she knows full well what’s going on around her. I’m sure she usually does know what’s going on, too. Why? Because I actually become unable to speak in the presence of such a mysterious and intriguing force. Despite my huge, dark glasses (meant to disguise my intense vulnerability to the female gender), I think my cover is still blown. Why? Oh, maybe because of the fact that I break my neck getting a moment longer to gaze at these creatures. And maybe because of the fact that I become completely stupefied in their wake. Unfortunately, there are only three weeks left of school to enjoy the rapture of springtime before we all scatter to points unknown (well, most of you are just going back to Connecticut before the IT festival, but some of us are doing something different). UVM only gives us about a month and a half to enjoy our physical humanity, with months of tundra in the middle, like a sandwich with very thin slices of fresh bread filled with lots of frozen spam. Personally, I won’t be here next year. The draw to study abroad is just too great. I’ll be going to Australia, basking in the warm Aussie heat, and learning to cope with the beauty of the tank top all semester long. Hopefully, when I return, I’ll be able to maintain in the company of such wonderful ladies as we have here at our marvelous institution of higher learning.
