::cackles:: Campus legend has it that any Freshman that walks over the compass on Locust Walk (the main campus artery) will fail his or her first midterm, unless he or she sleeps with someone under The Button (a massive Claes Oldenburg sculpture in front of Van Pelt Library). Like a good boo, I have studiously avoided any contact with said compass. However, my friend Jing had walked over the compass several times before she heard the legend, so she figured she was doomed anyway and now takes no heed of the ominous forbodings of upperclassmen. While walking to lunch together after Java, we walked through the compass square -- I ritually skirting its perimeter and Jing carelessly walking over its edge. I chided Jing for her lack of respect for campus legend and warned her not to toy with the anger of the Vengeful Undead Spirit of Benjamin Franklin. She laughed. However, I fear that this may come back to haunt her. She managed to get through the line faster than I (I got a smoothie in addition to my Chick-Fil-A), and held a table for us. And while she sat waiting, someone accidentally stepped on a ketchup packet and spattered one of Jing's pantlegs with tomatoey doom -- the pantleg of the foot that stepped on the compass. She never saw who did it. When she told me what had happened, I instantly knew that the Vengeful Undead Spirit of Benjamin Franklin was behind it. I warned her: next time, it will be blood!

The moral: Don't mess with campus legend. It's not worth the risk.