Columnist’s nose (whoops! note): This is the fourth in a series of columns designed to impose upon you the author’s random thoughts, worthless suggestions and tips on how to get out of taking finals.

Things About Which I Have Been Thinking About Department:

Did you ever notice the large number of female NIU students with those pastel-colored motor scooters? They seem to be increasing exponentially as the Next BIG Thing.

An example: On Monday I saw three girls tooling around campus on pink and lavender scooters. On Tuesday, I noticed no less than four. What strange foreboding does this have?

Well, 3.5 scooter girls per day multiplied by seven equals 24.5 scooter girls at NIU a week. Further calculations project the number of scooter girls on campus per year to be 1,274! Translated, that comes to roughly one in 20 NIU students.

The moral? Don’t insult scooter girls, because they have plenty of friends.

The Around the Clock restaurant on Hillcrest Drive has reopened with new management and a new name: the Red Apple Family Restaurant. The area north of campus finally has a 24-hour restaurant open to it again.

One problem. DeKalb has had a “Red Apple” restaurant for quite some time now—Rick’s Red Apple, by the Village Commons Bookstore. This could get confusing for some people.

I mean, would George Washington Carver move next door to George Washington? Would John Wayne and John Wayne Gacy ever live on the same block? No way! It would be too confusing.

Evade Your Final Exams for Fun and Profit Department:

There are a number of excuses you can give your teachers for your failure to study for finals. Forget the “dog ate my homework” routine; you can do better than that.

Tell Teach you just gave blood and are too weak to study. This (hopefully) will play on his or her sympathy because of your altruism. Or tell them you’ve been hoodwinked by the bookstores, who lured you to sell your much-needed books back before finals week with promi$e$ of big money.

Or forget the teachers’ threats and go on tour with Ted Nugent. Concert touring with big-name artists is always a good excuse for getting out of tests. So is flagpole sitting for the Guinness Book of World Records—”I can’t come down until Labor Day if I want to clinch this record!”

If you give up on the excuses and escapes and do decide to study, I have only one tip for you. Start studying two months ago.

Christmas Presence Department:

Clip and save this little list of what to get your favorite celebrities for the holidays.

The Board of Regents could use a few full-fledged secret servicemen to protect against protesters when they come to NIU for meetings. I’m not sure if they really need the extra security, but it sure looked like they wanted it two weeks ago.

Give George Bush’s health all your prayers. This could be more of a present to all Americans than to George himself, considering who his VP-to-be is.

Give Tammy Faye Bakker an industrial-sized hanky/blanket to dry her big crocodile tears on while hubby Jim is in the slammer for fraud.

And give Geraldo Rivera a pop in the eyeball for Christmas, just in case his nose injuries have stopped smarting.

Don’t get a sports car for Provost Kendall Baker. Campus protesters and Star cartoonists have made it painfully obvious he’s set as far as autos go.

Bring DeKalb home to your parents for the holidays. Your mom and pop will be delighted when they return home from work to see the family tree decorated with barbed-wire garland and corn cob ornaments.

And give yourself a hand if you’ve made it through another semester with your sanity and any money left in your checking account at all. May the scooter girls be with you.