Author Archives: Jamie Tunkel

Druzzles

Nationality: English
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“Okay, so one of the games that we play in college is called Druzzles. And, uh, it’s this thing where a bunch of us drink heavily. We have a bunch of shots, get really drunk… and once we are sufficiently inebriated, then you pair up into teams of two and um, everyone busts out a small, one hundred piece puzzle, fifty piece puzzle, something like that, and then you, uh, someone starts, uh, like, a timer or something like that and all of the teams race to see who can finish the puzzle first, which is always an interesting game to see because everyone’s really drunk.”

 

This drinking game is particularly interesting because, unlike many other drinking games, it requires a lot of forethought. Most other drinking games require little more than some cups, ping-pong balls, or a stack of cards. On the other hand, for Druzzles, you have to go out and buy multiple small puzzles and prepare for the game (unless you’ve played the game several times and already have enough small puzzles.)

Druzzles represents an interesting perversion of a childhood game, but also, in some ways, a reversion to childhood. The informant mentioned that the puzzles they use for the game are very small (50-100 pieces). These types of puzzles tend to be made for children (he also told me that the puzzles they use often have cartoon characters from popular children’s television shows.) On the one hand, Druzzles takes a childhood game and perverts or sullies it by incorporating the aspect of underage drinking. On the other hand, the game sort of represents a method for one to revert to a child-like state of mind. When you are a kid, a 50-100 piece puzzle can be quite challenging and might occupy an hour of playtime with a friend. When you are an adult, such a simple puzzle can be put together in mere minutes, especially with the help of a friend. However, all of the drinking that is involved in this game can make it very difficult for the participants to put together the puzzles.

It’s fitting that the informant learned this game in college. After all, college is a liminal period in one’s life; you’re no longer a kid but you’re not quite a fully formed adult. The game of Druzzles conflates these phases of life by incorporating elements from childhood (the puzzles) and elements of adulthood (drinking.)

Cornell Halloween Legend

Nationality: American, Polish, Russian, a little bit of French
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Ithaca, New York
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“So, um, there’s a legend that, and I’m pretty sure it’s true, that one time on Halloween, the Engineers, it might not actually be the Engineers, I don’t know who did it, but I think it’s the Engineers because they’re the only ones smart enough to actually do something like this… one Halloween, they got a huge pumpkin on the top of the clock tower and no one really knows how they did it because the clock tower is pointy and really tall and has one hundred and sixty-one stairs. And so now, every year for Halloween, as tribute to that, Cornell lights the face of the clock tower orange and makes it look like a jack o’lantern… like makes a jack o’lantern face in it. I’ve heard the story from Orientation Leaders. I don’t remember if they said it was Engineers, but I think it is.”

 

The informant was very adamant that the group of students who supposedly pulled off this prank consisted of Engineers. Her tone was very insistent. This makes sense because she is an Engineering student. Her version of the legend reflects how highly she thinks of her own major at Cornell. It’s interesting how the school has turned this prank (or legend of a prank) into a folk tradition by lighting up the clock tower every year to look like a jack o’lantern. The school seems to greatly value the prank or (legend of the prank) and thus feels the need to keep this story alive through this annual, symbolic practice.

 

Accountant Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 61
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Oceanside, New York
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“We don’t bury our mistakes, we only erase them.”

 

I found this joke interesting because I don’t find it particularly funny, but, according to the informant, accountants enjoy the joke a lot. The joke refers to another profession: doctors. According to the informant, the joke means that doctors bury their mistakes whereas accountants only erase them. The joke seems to operate on a couple of levels. On the one hand, the joke implies a rather negative view of the field of medicine. It seems to say, well, accountants might mess up, but at least we don’t kill people when we mess up. On the other hand, the joke also indicates that what accountants do is not as serious as what doctors do. Accounting can be a very stressful job, especially during tax season, and the joke serves as a reminder that their job is not a matter of life and death. It is almost a way of comforting fellow accountants by reminding each other that if they make a mistake they can simply erase it and start over.

Dirty Accountant Joke

Nationality: American
Age: 61
Occupation: Accountant
Residence: Oceanside, New York
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“Accountants do it with double-entry.”

 

This dirty joke is a double-entendre. It implies a sexual situation, but really it refers to the fact that bookkeeping is a double entry system. You enter information in a total column and a transactional column (hence, two entries.) The informant is an accountant and I believe that one of the major reasons the informant likes the joke and repeats it is that his profession is generally viewed as boring and accountants tend to be stereotyped as suit-wearing, brief-case carrying, straight-laced professionals who spend their days working with numbers and doing taxes. The dirtiness of the joke is unexpected and telling the joke seems to be a way for the informant to prove that he is more than a drone.

 

Cornell Virgin Legend

Nationality: American, Polish, Russian, a little bit of French
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Ithaca, New York
Performance Date: March 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: None

“Okay, so the deal is, there’s A.D. White and Ezra Cornell. So, there are statues of each of them. Ezra Cornell is the first president of Cornell and, I forget, I think A.D. White was the founder. Oh, no, no, no, A.D. White was the first president and they named the school after Cornell. So, um, what happened is, there’s statues of them on opposite sides of the Arts Quad, and Cornell legend says that if a virgin crosses the Arts Quad at midnight, the ghost of the two statues walk to the center of the Arts Quad and shake hands in appreciation of chastity. Okay, in recent years, students have painted footprints of the two umm, one in white, one set of footprints in white and one set of footprints in red that lead to the center circle on the Arts Quad as if the statues actually were able to get up and walk.  

I dunno really where I heard this from. Everyone just sort of knows it. I think maybe I heard it from my Orientation Leader or a tour guide but I can’t remember.”

 

The informant was pretty shaky on the details of the legend, and seemed somewhat flustered when she forgot who founded the school and who was the first president. It was pretty funny because even though there are statues of these two important figures at her school, that does not seem to be very important to her, and understanding the actual, historical roles of these two figures is not imperative to understanding the legend.

The legend is a quaint throwback to the notion of chastity and is particularly ironic in a college environment, where the attitude usually seems to be that everyone is having casual sex or losing their virginity. It almost seems to be making a joke out of the idea of a virgin on campus, as if to say that having a virgin on their campus is so impossible that if there was one, supernatural things would occur. It is interesting that students have taken the urban legend and perpetuated their own sort of folklore by making a folk tradition out of painting the footsteps onto the quad.

A variation of this legend appears in the book Campus Legends: A Handbook (Greenwood Folklore Handbooks), compiled by Elizabeth Tucker. The book says, “…if a virgin graduates from Cornell, the two statues will meet in the middle of their courtyard to shake hands” (Tucker 16.) The book also notes that students have a tradition of painting the red and white footsteps in the courtyard between the two statues. It is interesting that the version of the legend in this book, which was published in 2005, has a distinct variation from the version of the legend that the informant told me. In one version, the statues shake hands when a virgin graduates, whereas in the version the informant told me, that statues shake hands when a virgin crosses at midnight. The canonized version of the legend suggests that it is rare for a person to graduate a virgin (that is, to make it through all four years of college and remain a virgin), whereas the version the informant told me suggests that it is rare for someone to maintain their virginity at all once they arrive at college. Perhaps this variation implies a changing view of sexuality over the past few years and suggests that modern college students are much more sexually aware and sexually active than ever before.