Dennis Quaid, you are a thief. This week “The Express,” a film in which you are slated to star, convinced the university to remove all of the bike racks from the front of Sargent Hall. But just taking the bike racks wasn’t enough.
Like a Hamburglar with a taste for bikes, your film crew, or maybe it was the university (it doesn’t matter) descended on the front of Sargent and absconded with all the bicycles parked there. Now students sit desperately as they wait to find out what became of their beloved cycles.
And yet, even as students were forced to trade their bi-pedals for bipeds, protest has remained muted. Is it because you’ve been paying them off? If so, please pay me off and I will be silent.
However, barring a bride, I will fight for my principles. The injustices of the misplaced bikes pop out at me like the shark in your 1983 film, “Jaws 3-D.” But, unlike that film, I can’t just dispose of my cardboard glasses and make everything go away.
In fact, I can’t go away at all. My bike now resides somewhere deep within the university’s bowels. How will I function now that I can only hit the snooze button twice in the morning?
Of course, you weren’t thinking of that. You and your precious film were too busy giving students buzz-cuts and making them pretend to be at Syracuse to give me any thought. To you, Northwestern students aren’t real people, they are just “extras” a demeaning term designed to equate students with long-lasting bubble gum.
But, then again, what do you know about long-lasting? It’s been widely rumored that you and Meg Ryan split after mutual infidelity. Sounds like our town’s bicycles aren’t the first ones you’ve taken an interest in riding.
All juvenile insults aside, Dennis, we here at NU just want our bikes back. That’s why I’m writing to you. I’ve seen your work in the epic comedy “Yours, Mine & Ours”, my favorite movie to prominently feature an ampersand ever. In that film, you put on a tour de force performance.
I’ll never forget your gripping line in the trailer for that film when you said “Let’s go! Let’s go! Let’s go! Move it! Move it! Move it!” Now, Dennis, I have no desire to go. Nevermore will I “move it.”
But don’t expect this failure to move to keep me from protesting. I’m already planning a rally at The Rock entitled “Take Back the Bike.”
If I need to, I’ll take this all the way up to the City of Evanston. That’s right, next fall you can be ready for Big Bike Night, a night in which NU students will eat bicycles in solidarity. Another name for this culinary event could be “Eating at Allison Hall.”
Of course, I understand that you will be out of town by then. By that time, we will be back to griping to the university. I just thought it would be nice to have someone new to not care about my well-being for a while.