ITHACA—As winter recess comes to an end, travel-weary Cornellians return to campus by the busload, only to be greeted by what one local weather enthusiast describes as “the ideal environment for some really funny shit to happen.”
Bryan Trast, a native Ithacan and self-proclaimed “Climate Harmonic Analyst,” looks forward to this time every year: “The snowfall, the windchill, the almost-but-not-quite shoveled sidewalks… The conditions are perfect for watching unsuspecting victi–I mean students–eat shit on their way to and from class.”
As the founder and head researcher of Ithacans for Climate-Related Levity (formerly Ithacans for Climate-Related Injury), Trast operates a network of repurposed trail cameras and ultra-sensitive microphones to capture what he calls “gaiety in its rawest form.”
“I’m always watching,” Trast murmurs as he presents his video collection of weather-related accidents*. “The SLOOPs and the SLEEEPs and the FWEEEPs are all well and good. My personal favorite is the SHWOOP–but that’s self-explanatory. The KRRACK is for the refined palette… But the FWOOMPs… rarely are conditions ever so slippery, so dangerous, so perfect…”
In preparation for the coming season, ICRL’s R&D department is hard at work researching ways to reduce the effectiveness of road salt and increase the incline of walkways “everywhere.”
*Editor’s note: ICRL’s administration insists there is “no such thing” as a weather-related accident.
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