Gouda-Bye, Big Sibs

Big Sib Chairs here. 4:23 p.m., Whole Foods Cafe. Interview #147 

The first thing I noticed about King DiFreshmann was his lack of a rotisserie chicken in a bag. Everyone knows it’s a tradition to bring us an offering of a whole chicken. He might as well have spat in our faces.

 Second, his icebreaker. He took it very literally and brought a block of ice, a hammer, and a young, overworked child to be the Breaker of the Ice. Bonus points for following instructions; deductions for the immense pride he took in child labor and for the ice shard that embedded itself into my eyeball.

Then, in an attempt to help him salvage his interview, we asked him an easy question: what floor are the gym lockers on?

“11th floor.”

“Excuse me?”

“Son of a–”

“Ahem…”

“Sorry, force of habit. That’s just what I say to all the freshmen—the 11th floor—you know… Oh, wait… No, that’s not what I meant. Aw shucks, I’m actually nice to freshmen. Like really nice!”

“Ok… I guess. Speaking of being nice to freshmen, what qualities do you possess that you believe would make you a good Big Sib?”

King DiFreshmann didn’t even hesitate.

“Well, I think I could really put freshmen in their place.”

“Umm… could you elaborate on that?”

“Well, if you want a Big Sib who’s gonna keep them in line, that’s me. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve seen freshmen walking in a confused stupor on the seventh floor. Tell you what, I’m a firm believer that freshmen don’t belong anywhere above the fifth floor. As a Big Sib, if I so much as saw a sweaty little sack of gym clothes or a rolling backpack I would–”

“You know what? I think we’re good. Let’s move on to the scenario, shall we? And remember that we’re looking for compassion. Let’s say a freshman comes up to you during homeroom and–”

“Ah, a freshman! Fresh mea– I mean mee-ting opportunity!”

“Right… So, anyways, it’s been a couple of weeks into school now. You’ve been seeing each other in homeroom for a bit, and this freshman tells you that they may or may not have developed… a little crush on you. What do you do?”

“I tell them absolutely not. I don’t date my underlings. They should stick to polishing my shoes.”

“Oh… right.”

Note: The next five minutes have been omitted from the recording because DiFreshmann went into a long description of one pedicure he made a poor “future Little Sib” give him before coming to the interview. I choked on my water while listening to DiFreshmann, and my co-chair ran to buy me some cough drops downstairs (which cost like $50 a bag). That just made me choke harder.

At that point, we thought we had everything we needed to know about King DiFreshmann. However, the list of questions left unasked beckoned to us. Maybe just one more…

“So, why do you want to be a Big Sib?”

“Not gonna lie? Definitely for the money.”

“King, this is an unpaid position.”

“You’re kidding. How do you get Big Sibs to welcome incoming freshmen till past 8 p.m. without paying them?”

We had to be honest with him. “Well… we do have to lock some of the annoying ones in the basement, but that’s beside the point!”

It was finally time to end the interview.

“Do you have any questions for us?”

“Boy, do I have questions!” King whipped out a medieval scroll from his backpack and, brandishing it like a sword, unfurled it. 

“What is the meaning of life? What is love? Why are we all here? What’s our purpose?

What’s your favorite cheese?”

My co-chair and I looked at each other. 

“Gouda. As in Gouda-bye.”