WASHINGTON - Health officials at the George Washington University delivered a somber message to the school’s student body this Tuesday, announcing that Thurston Hall has been crippled by a grisly Cooties pandemic.The dormitory, a staple of freshman housing at the school’s Foggy Bottom campus, is far from prone to negative news.
Just last month an invasion of tarsiers, a species of small tropical primates, forced many students to seek temporary housing in other locations. The month prior a leprosy outbreak taught incoming freshmen the difficulties of college life.
Yet, health officials claim that these issues pale in comparison to the threat of a full cooties pandemic.
“We have to take some of the blame for this. Proper education could have prevented the infestation, we’re sure of it, but unfortunately we spent too much time focusing on less important issues, like alcohol abuse and the dangers of unprotected intercourse,” Miguel Abrazo, the head of Student Health Services, said in the emergency address.
The address was uncharacteristically solemn and emotional, delivered with shaking voice and tear-stained tissues.
The speech outlined a bevy of preventative measures against cooties.
Holding hands with cute girls or hunky boys at recess and friendly hugs in between classes when the teacher wasn’t looking are strictly forbidden to the freshman class, as these are the favored mode of transportation for the six legged insects, their Latin name Cootificus huggandkiss.
“I walk through this campus and I know I’ve failed you. Every time I see someone passing folded ‘will you go out with me, please check one?’ notes or sharing their peanut butter and jelly uncrustables, I know that cooties have claimed another victim. It’s all fun and games until someone is making a heart with their hands and then people die.”
Protection, Abrazo warned, is the only certain way to prevent Cooties from spreading further than the halls of Thurston. Any hand-holding should be done only with latex surgical gloves, and quick kisses on the cheek are only acceptable when both parties are wearing approved CPR masks.
“I haven’t seen an outbreak this severe since I taught second grade in a public elementary school,” Explained a Health Services agent in a short question and answers session following the briefing. “Cooties are no laughing matter, but I know that GW can get through this together. We will get through this together.”
The Cooties have, at press time, broken the heart of five freshmen and left at least forty more hopelessly love-struck. Six students have died.
