Strolling down 33rd Street, you are met with the refreshing sound of honking cars, the sight of cumbersome skyscrapers and nauseatingly delicious smells of halal. As you become immersed in these beloved city charms, you almost forget about your pathetic life as a Drexel University student until you encounter the dreaded beast on the corner of 33rd and Market streets. Mario. The minute those beady little eyes on that senseless statue stare deep into your soul you instantly recall your deteriorating sanity, crippling debt, and your morale drops almost as low as your GPA.
Mario the Magnificent, Drexel’s current mascot, is not fitting for our campus. President Jawn A. Fries is all about change, and we should please him by focusing on changing our mascot. We need something that is more in line of what the university stands for, which is why I am proposing the newest mascot: the Drexel Shaft.
To make the change more inconspicuous, we can even call it “Shaft the Magnificent” or better yet “the Magnificent Shaft!” This might be ballsy for me to say, but we need to stop d—ing around and make a change that’s actually relatable to students.
A dragon? Who the hell came up with that? Is it because Drexel is “dragon” us to an early grave? Or because Drexel is a fiery hell? Yeah, I don’t really get it. I asked a few of my friends and they didn’t get it either. And they’re engineers so they’re smart ‘cause they like build stuff and all. These engineers that everyone talks about could even help build this ingenious fixture that will replace that snobby little reptile.
Anyways, nobody gets the whole dragon thing. But what do we all get? What unites each and every miserable Drexel student? The Drexel Shaft.
The student body at Drexel is filled with many distinctive types of people and that’s what makes Drexel so great, they say. (But if you ask me, I still can’t wrap my head around those kids that play with swords outside of the DAC. Or that dumb vegan club.) Anyways, the point is, we’re all super different. The only thing that really connects us at the end of the day is how much Drexel screws us over.
We’re sick of Mario and want a symbol that actually represents Drexel’s legacy. Dragons aren’t even real, but the shaft definitely is and we deserve a constant reminder of that. Firmly standing erect on the corner of 33rd, this shaft would be bigger than our ambitions, our piles of debt and all the egos of the frat bros combined.
It may be hard to find a place to put the dumb dragon Mario thing, so we could have a bonfire and just burn it. We could do it after a football game or something. Oh, wait. Maybe we can hold it in the summer. Oh, wait. We could possibly do it on the walkway by the armory. Oh, wait. My point exactly. We can’t ignore the Drexel shaft that is constantly penetrating us.
Drexel can include the shaft project in our tuition, because well they’re Drexel — they would do that. I’ve already sold my soul to this sadistic hell-hole, so what are a few more bucks? It’d be cocky not to.
I understand I wouldn’t get to see the shaft statue until like 20 years from now because that’s how long all construction at this university takes, but it would be worth it.
I’m not trying to shove this idea down anyone’s throat or anything, but start saying your goodbyes to Mario.