CP Urban Legends

Cal Poly doesn’t seem to have a lot of urban legends. Most stories are variable, usually about “my friend’s friend” who took one of the campus golf carts for a joy ride. In fact, where CP is concerned, truth is stranger than fiction. Here are some things that actually go on around campus.

Around June, couches start appearing around SLO on front lawns, sidewalks, occasionally in the middle of the street. What is this phenomenon? It’s not an alien conspiracy—it’s a surplus of thoroughly trashed couches that departing students are unable to foist off on new residents. Nobody seems to know where the dump is, so couches usually get a final night of serious trashing by celebrating graduates before the garbage man decides to haul them away. Other students get a little more creative; flaming couches in the middle of the street are not entirely unheard of.

Another strange phenomenon of inanimate objects deals with the cafeteria trays from VG’s. Although, taking the trays out of the late-night dining facility is prohibited, signs begging for their return appear on move-out weeks in December and June. Piles of plastic blue trays materialize on top of garbage cans and retaining walls. It seems that many freshmen are in the habit of hoarding these trays for purposes that to this day remain unknown.

You’ll find milk cartons hanging from trees, ceramic heads staring at you as you climb stairs, plaster people-pods appear ominously in a garden, mattresses outfitted with sheets, pillows, and stuffed animals in the courtyard of the business building, a knitted afghan carefully spread along a busy sidewalk, amorphous structures of wood and string in the middle of Dexter Lawn. Are these things the result of student pranks? Hardly. Cal Poly prides itself on being a hands-on community. Class projects are often very tactile. Whether a product of an architecture assignment, an experiment in modern art, or a political statement from a cultural pluralism course, sights like these appear and disappear frequently. Most of us have no idea what they mean. But it certainly provides an entertaining antidote to the boredom of seeing the same place day after day.