Odysseus Devastated upon Arrival in Ithaca, Confused Why He Spent So Long Reaching Only 12th Best College in US

By William Zhao '29

After a decade adrift, Odysseus landed in Ithaca at approximately 3:02:17 PM UTC on Thursday. Elated initially to reach the small town, Odysseus’s joy soon deflated upon realizing that he had reached the campus of only the 12th best college in the United States. Rather than his glittering homeland, Odysseus instead found himself greeted by an expanse of decrepit buildings and meek students. “I miss the days when I was the only nobody around,” Odysseus claimed, “here, everyone’s a nobody.” The trimillenarian Odysseus was further seen shaking a fist at Cornell students to get off of his lawn, and when asked about his views about the moral turpitude of the younger generation, Odysseus grumbled, “I miss the days when Ithacans had the heart to fight monsters and sack cities. Now, they just major in ‘Hotel Administration’ and train to be the future cupbearers of our time.” However, amidst the doom and gloom of campus, Odysseus found one small consolation: his wife Penelope had surely been safe with Cornell’s longstanding tradition of involuntary celibacy.