Middle Path Will Destroy Everything You Love
It’s always a little sad yet a little amusing to see the prospies* showing up to Admissions in what would be the perfect interview outfit anywhere else. Girls in silky skirts and heels, boys fidgeting in jackets and leather shoes—it’s not their fault that they’ll be punished for acing business-caz. After all, interviewers everywhere really do appreciate the effort, whether or not they’re dressed up as well. But the problem is that to get to the Admissions building, and then go one of my campus tours, you’re squaring off against Middle Path completely unarmed. And Middle Path will eat you up.
Last week, in her usual heartbreaker way, Ohio tossed out a few scraps of 60 degree weather before cruelly snatching them back. When the skies opened up in a chilling flood, I was on my way from anthropology class to the dining hall, which is about a sixty-second walk.
This is what happened.
I should have known better, of course, but that morning had been so brilliant and warm that I had been unable to resist unwrapping these summer flats, like special-occasion jewelry, and proudly strutting them up and down campus.
Most of the time, the rest of Kenyon’s population (the ladies AND lords) will be in boots. Rubber boots, leather boots, lace-up boots and buckled boots. They can plow over the muddy gravel of Middle Path or tromp a detour over the President Nugent’s wet lawn. I even went to a formal in rainboots once, and blended in with the similarly weatherproofed crowd. I love that I go to a school that is so deeply anti-Diva. On the other hand…. R.I.P. cute, dainty shoes…. At least until I get off The Hill.
*Prospies= Kenyon slang for prospective students.
Middle Path... Hungry for more shoes.