grace

Last Friday night, the CAP Center hosted a Stress Relief event last at the ELC Mall. This event was meant to calm students’ nerves through a variety of activities and attractions including therapy dogs, goat yoga, a stuff-a-plush station, and even a paint splatter room.

To begin, students made their way over to the adorable therapy dogs. This quickly turned sour when the dogs promptly began to chase any student who tried to pet them. Instead of gentle pawing and soothing cuddles, students found themselves seeking refuge in the cramped confines of the mailroom’s package lockers.

One frazzled student, Rover Barkington ’27  reported, “I just wanted to feel some affection. Instead, all I felt was somebody’s package digging into my back while I was crammed in that locker.”

Goat yoga was just as distressing for Bucknellians. Somehow, the farm sent over the wrong goats! Instead of relaxed, yoga-loving ones, they sent the ones that were meant to go to the vet for rabies treatment. While students were extended in downwards dog positions, the goats took turns nibbling on their wrists. Now, more than a dozen Bucknellians are at Evangelical Hospital receiving treatment and drawing up lawsuits against the school to pay their medical bills.

There were other non-animal related activities, but they were far from therapeutic. The paint splatter room, designed to let students unleash their creativity and frustration by flinging paint at canvases, quickly devolved into chaotic mayhem. The Bison, where the canvases were situated, quickly turned into a scene from a modern art horror movie. 

It turns out that Bucknellians have awful aim, which is not something anybody could have guessed from observing our 27 Division 1 athletic teams. So, instead of decorating the canvases, students accidentally embellished each other’s clothing with colorful splatters. At this station, Bucknellians broke the record for the most pairs of LuluLemon leggings destroyed in just one hour.

To conclude the evening, students made their way over to the stuff-a-plush area, where they could craft small dolls by stuffing them themselves. This DIY experience was meant to be enjoyable and extremely calming.

However, after the splatter paint fiasco, many had impaired vision since paint had seeped into their eyes. This made it challenging for them to distinguish between the hollow plush dolls and the rabid goats that were meandering around the ELC. Understandably, the goats felt violated and rightfully retaliated by gnawing on more students.

As the sun set on what was supposed to be a day of relaxation, Bucknell resembled a battleground of fleece, fur, and paint. Needless to say, Stress Relief will go down in history as the event that caused students more stress than their midterms ever could.