Kid wearing sleeves in weight room leaves fellow lifters asking, “What is he trying to hide?”

Last Tuesday, at approximately 4:10 p.m., a male wearing a normal T-shirt entered the weight room, eliciting reactions of horror, curiosity and utter bafflement from his fellow athletes.

"Nobody knew what to do," said Mitch Hanssen '10, a baseball player sporting a white ribbed tank that would have been considered repulsive in any other situation. "Do we turn him into Public Safety for disobeying one of Skoglund's most sacred laws? Bring him to Regents so someone could study the mysterious behavior of this rare specimen?"

Though there are no official college rules regarding exercising attire, gym regulars have long upheld a strict ban on sleeves.

"I've been tempted to fall into the same trap a couple times when I've been behind on laundry, but it's not that hard of a problem to fix," said shot-putter Brad Williams '12, who prefers to simply go shirtless whenever possible. "Just find some scissors and chop 'em off. If you end up with a really goofy-looking shirt that doesn't have sides at all, that's even better."

When asked about his unorthodox fashion choices, the student, who wished to remain unidentified to avoid further shunning by his peers, seemed remarkably oblivious.

"I don't really understand why people got so upset about this shirt," he said, scrutinizing it carefully. "I've never really thought that much about it. I just got it at an Atmosphere concert last summer. Wait, is that it? Do people not like Atmosphere anymore or something?"

As of Thursday, weight room occupants had still not reached a consensus about the motivation behind the student's antics, but generally agreed that he must be a first-year from either Iowa or the early Victorian era.

"Editor's note: this article appeared in the April 30, 2010 satire issue of the Messenger."