COLLEGE TOWNS OF THE LIVING DEAD:Who's Supposed to Fix This Shit, Anyway?

You see this? This is you. I'm serious! Right here, life is about to form on this planet for the very first time. A group of amino acids is about to combine to form the first protein. The building blocks of what YOU call "life." Strange, isn't it? Everything you know, your entire civilization, it all begins right here in this little pond of goo.

- Q. [John de Lancie]
Star Trek: The Next Generation

All Good Things... (series finale, 1994)

It's amazing how people think they can pull the wool over the world's eyes, how human beings act when they believe no one is looking.

Take, for instance, young women with eating disorders. One would think the last place someone battling such a disorder would go would be a grocery store. After all, the place where most folks buy food should be a repellent to anyone trying to avoid it.

But in college towns across the country, that's where the savvy anorexic goes to buy the tools of a rather unhealthy trade. At pharmacies, someone is more likely to face questions over excessive amounts of diet aids. Cashiers in this region tend to be suspicious of any large quantity of over-the-counter meds, thanks to a blossoming meth industry. Unlike supermarkets, there's rarely a full house in a drugstore - empty stores lead to chit-chatty cashiers who might have time to give a rat's ass.

A grocery store? Throw in a few bars of soap, some toilet paper, a bag of baby carrots, and a few rice cakes, and no one is going to ask any questions, thanks to self-service checkout.

Last night, I watched four college students, one right after the other, pull the same self-checkout trick I've seen a hundred times in this town and in other college communities. Each one carried baskets filled with diet foods, diet soda, Fiji water, Special K, and South Beach products. Not one of them could have weighed more than 110-115 pounds.

As each of these women emptied their baskets at the counter, I noticed that all four were buying the same brand of liquid laxative. Not small bottles, either. We're talking enough laxative to pass a 1974 Chevy Malibu.

What are the odds that four women, wearing the same Greek letters, would all be constipated at the same time? Or would all pretend not to recognize each other in adjacent check-out lines?

Every single publication I see while I'm waiting in line - all geared towards women - has at least one article regarding weight loss or staying fit mentioned on the cover. Headlines scream out, in bold four-color print, about how such-in-such A-lister lost 10 pounds through a miracle diet, or how some actress has lost her sexiness because she - gasp - had a child and "let herself go a bit."

All four of the women in fron of me were, coincidentally, purchasing copies of these magazines.

I can't be the only one in this goddamned town who notices this kind of stuff. I looked around, but nobody seemed to think anything was out of place. Three stereotypical Miami students doing what Miami female students stereotypically do.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

Almost every trip to the store here in Oxford, I see the same scene play out in some form or fashion. Young women, lined up to redefine thinner, working to keep the Auschwitz physique in style.

Eating disorders have been a destructive staple of the college experience for decades. I've met women in their 40s and 50s who developed eating disorders in their college days and fought to regain their sense of true beauty. One rarely meets women in their 40s or 50s who have not addressed their eating disorders because, frankly, those who don't seek treatment usually don't make it that far.

Eating disorders are just one of the dozens of problems plaguing college communities these days. The problems are almost as old as higher education itself. Have we finally reached a point where the silent institutionalization of so many dangerous practices has led campuses to just treat these problems as if they're part of everyday life?

It is impossible for one living and working in any college community to not notice these problems, yet no one seems ready or willing to solve them.

The faculty? Please. The vast majority are too busy grading papers, conducting marginally relevant research, and publishing mostly-bullshit articles to think of students as anything more than an identification number in a gradebook. Many of those with tenure sit on thrones of bullshit; those pursuing tenure seek to pile on their own in an effort to gain job security. Faculty these days barely have time to actually teach, much less care.

What about a university's administration? They must have some concern for future alums, right? Maybe a bit, but probably not beyond the need to meet admissions requirements and accreditation standards, to crank out graduates, and to stalk said graduates in an attempt to secure additional funding.

Students? They see the problems daily and bemoan them; yet by refusing to police themselves or to take more action beyond the occasional rally or protest, there is no hope of a solution. Who has time, after all, to care? There's organization meetings, campus activities, study groups, classes, and the quest for that elusive post-party hook-up.

Besides, the faculty and administration are supposed to fix things, right?

Or maybe the buck gets passed to the townsfolk, the "townie." Should townies clean up a college's mess? They seem to be the ones who care, at least in terms of protecting their livelihoods and families. They're the ones who vote on the sales taxes and the breaks for students. They support the police department and non-campus social services.

I'm sure there will be at least one college student who'll read this, some day, who thinks that's just peachy. I'm also sure there will be at least one townie, somewhere in some college town, who thinks that idea is utterly insane.

I'm not just talking about Oxford Fucking Ohio here. Ask the folks in Durham, North Carolina, how much they're looking forward to cleaning up Duke's shit stain of a lacrosse program. Go ahead and ask the Indiana faculty how much a fraternity member's death this weekend really impacted Monday's lectures.

Welcome to the world of higher education. As long as the tuition check doesn't bounce, nobody really gives a shit how you choose to ruin your life - or the lives of others. As long as no one sees it or hears about it, obviously, no problem exists.

Oh yes! Where was I? Oh, that's right. Laxatives, eating disorders, and the grocery store...

I recognized one of the girls in the check-out line. She and her roommate had me over for supper and gave me a tour of the so-called party scene here in Oxford.

I asked her how her semester was going. Her answer - fine. She smiled and asked if it was true I was dating a girl at the University of Cincinnati. Total rumor, I explained.

I laughed. She laughed. Good times.

I made a comment about her gigantic bottle of liquid laxative.

She said that she simply needed it to make her feel better. She stared at me for a few seconds, got this angry look on her face, and just walked off.

Hope she feels better soon. She looks way too thin and jaundiced. I hope to God she's not using it for what I think she's using it for.

At least she'll be able to read People in the can while she's making herself feel better.