The Vitamin D Initiative

Principal Yu was walking through the dark halls of Stuyvesant High School last Friday, observing the rows of seniors with their dead eyes glued to their screens, when the Wi-Fi suddenly cut off. Wailing, sobbing, and overall hysteria ensued, and hands began to grab at Principal Yu’s crisp dress shirt and khakis, begging for salvation.

The Wi-Fi turned back on 30 seconds later, and despite the fact that only two ambulances were called through the whole ordeal, Principal Yu realized it was time for a change. He was determined to prove to the seniors that they could survive without Wi-Fi, or as they call it, “the signal of life.”

The administration announced the “Vitamin D Initiative” the next day: the seniors—being the least likely grade to draw attention if they were to disappear—were going to be taken on a camping trip the very next weekend. 

Eight hundred sweaty seniors were taken outside and—get this—cruelly forced to experience sunlight! While one senior started to claw his own eyes out, another began to maniacally scream, “HOW DO YOU LOWER THE BRIGHTNESS? WHERE ARE THE CONTROLS?”

Then, the poor seniors were all forced onto a dank school bus and transported deep into the woods. Upon arrival, they tried to remove their luggage from the cargo compartment with their incredibly weak, senioritis-infested arms. Apparently, the only things seniors can carry are diplomas and huge egos, because they gave up after two minutes and proceeded to remove only their lightweight tents, marching in a depressed line to the campground. Principal Yu managed to detach himself from the dismal students, finding a cell tower a mile away where he camped out in order to watch BTS videos in peace. Back at the campground, senior Cody Ingnerd pulled out the tent instruction manual but realized he couldn’t use it since he could only read binary code. Meanwhile, senior Hudson Hugginkiss, who had the patience of a freshman waiting in the cafeteria line, frantically began trying to find some keywords by muttering, “Ctrl+F. How do I do Ctrl+F on paper???” In the end, they couldn’t figure out what to do with the tents, so they just used some fellow seniors as poles, draping the obnoxiously orange nylon over their bowed heads. According to Hugginkiss, students served as the tent poles in shifts, swapping places every 41 minutes.

Meanwhile, those who were on break were tasked with collecting firewood. Since they’d only ever chopped wood in Minecraft, they followed what they believed was the standard procedure: hacking a chunk off the middle, and then standing underneath the tree to chop up the top part. Unfortunately, since they remembered the laws of Minecraft but not those of gravity, most of them ended up eating the wood instead of collecting it. On the bright side, it probably had more nutritional value than their natural diets of fro-yo and their friends’ halal food lunch scraps. Just think of all that fiber!

By that point, Principal Yu had come back to see how everyone was getting on—by this point, about 200 seniors were MIA—and suggested that they play an “active game.”

“Does he mean a sport? Is he crazy?” the confused seniors muttered to one another. Eventually, they came to a consensus. They would play a sport—a PE “sport”: square dancing.

“No! PE sports don’t count! You know we only call those exercise so the DOE doesn’t impale me, right?” Principal Yu cried. But it was too late—everyone was busy honoring their corners and promenading their partners around town.

“Gah!” he yelled. “This is just a sorry excuse for you guys to hold hands with each other!” He stalked off, whipping the tent off the human tent poles and grabbing his stuff.

We’re not quite sure what happened next. The seniors haven’t been found yet, but we have heard rumors of a new, rather savage civilization living in the woods. Every once in a while, some cafeteria food goes missing, and the story of the Limp-Armed Tribe is whispered in the halls once more.