From his dastardly perch atop Foellinger’s great dome, Campus Scout frowns a nasty frown. 

The holiday season is upon campus, but our blue friend has turned a sour shade of green. He’s begun to envy the cheer that accompanies the well-earned end of the semester.

Lights on trees, snowmen on the Main Quad and swirly snow angels — PAH! They don’t know what Scout has to deal with, night after night! He’s subjected to the joyous songs from KAMS and the exuberant cheers from Gies Memorial Stadium, all while icicles descend from the rim of his Daily Illini cap. 

Urbana Public Works is still fumigating his steam tunnels for Soviet-era pestilence, the Federal Communications Commission is still fining him $500,000 for eating endangered hippo meat on live TV and, worst of all, he still hasn’t gotten his annual Christmas visit from “the Galloping Ghost,” Red Grange. 

No, no, NO! He’s had enough of this — more than quite enough!  

These ungrateful students, who he’s protected with his visceral wit and satirical sword all these years — they would just have to do without their holiday cheer this very year. 

It’s decided, then. They will wake up in the morning to find that their beloved winter break is nowhere to be found. 

With a great whistle, Scout leaps off Foellinger, grasping onto his trusty companion M.A.X., a drone he’d nicked from a robotics lab closet. His first order of business is every single house that contributed to the noise from Gies Memorial Stadium — oh, that noise noise noise! 

Soaring over the campus, he keeps a lookout for the telltale signs of a student athlete’s abode. 

He drops down onto his first roof, sliding down the steam pipe air vents like a jelly-boned Tom Cruise. There, by the paper-mache replica of a fire, lay his first booty. It was long and strong and plated with solid gold. 

An electric scooter! Oh, the racket these things would make, zipping up streets and knocking into unsuspecting pedestrians. Why not take the bus? Why not stretch the legs? You’re athletes for crying out loud, you can do with a little cardio! 

Scout groans a mighty groan and seizes the neck of the e-scooter. Subtlety be damned, he gives a great heave and hurls the blasted thing out the window with a great CRASH! 

Such great liberation and emotional catharsis. This is only the beginning. He leaps out onto M.A.X.’s outstretched arms and soars high over Champaign-Urbana once more.

There. He drops down an elevator shaft full of spewing steam and emerges into a subterranean space full of e-scooters. The hidden cache of scooters! Of course it’s below Huff Hall within a sealed vault made from blood diamonds and calcified Iraqi oil. 

Here lies the motherlode. Scout withdraws the exploding pen he had stolen from the set of the beloved 2008 action-comedy “Get Smart” starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway. 

“This one’s for you, Anne,” he murmurs as he lights the fuse and leaps up through the infinitesimal space between vault and earth. Flames wreathe his ankles as the chamber of misery burns in holy vengeance — be smited oh devilish e-scooters, you demented proprietors of laziness and perilous pedestrian transportation!  

The explosion rocks Huff Hall, and sirens erupt all around as Scout soars back into the air, cackling in glee. Now, this was the magic of the holiday — seeing the pretty lights dance far below, snow flecking his cerulean nose in the brisk December air. 

In 12 hours, campus will awake to find its athletes unable to commute, and their beloved sports will be kaput. Finally, some peace and quiet for Scout. 

He smiles widely as the last of the underground explosions sounds off, blowing debris high into the air. A PLUNK sounds as a 200-pound disk whizzes up into the night sky, clanking against Scout’s cranium and thrusting him into a free fall. 

M.A.X. continues on his prerecorded destination in Cabo San Lucas, and Scout hurls back down to earth, plummeting into the massive snowbank outside State Farm Center. 

Flat upon the soft earth, Scout looks up at the stars twinkling so far away. A million little snowflakes whirl around, infinite space between him and the night sky to which he belongs. Scout sniffs. What has he done? 

He’s become the very thing he’s always tried to skewer — self-righteous and cynical. This is the season of whimsy and cheer, of friends and good fun! No, no, he has to return the Christmas he’s stolen. 

Scout scales the snow bank and looks upon the picturesque C-U winter skyline. It might be a red-light district posing as an urban grassland oasis, but it’s his red-light district posing as an urban grassland oasis. 

It’s time to save Christmas. A scorched e-scooter handle clanks to the ground beside his feet. 

Turning away to protect his fuzzy slippers, Scout thinks and thinks and thinks. 

This is quite the hard task — for help, he has no one to ask! 

Perhaps this is one mess he just couldn’t hack. 

But, no! He’s the Campus Scout! In his conniving ways, there is no doubt! 

He will simply tilt the scales — what a fitting end to this tale! 

Scout takes off in flight, running across campus in utter delight. 

Running at the speed of his lies, his thighs begin to grow two — no, three times the size! 

Fumigation be accursed. Of the places he calls home, the steam tunnels are the first. 

Barreling through yellow tape, Scout finds his briefcase and makes an escape. 

Back through the streets of Green, he causes quite the scene! Lines at Joe’s and Lion stare as Scout leaps into the air. 

His briefcase open, he unfurls what he puts his hope in — an inflatable toboggan! 

Now soaring above campus on a strong gust, he will pay his dues to the school. It’s simply a must!  

Over each pipe and vent, there slides a present that Campus Scout has sent.  

To bars of contraband Soviet chocolate and sugary delights, shouts of joy light up the night. 

And back down to earth, Scout lands, the adoration of campus back in his hands. 

Spiked with banned Cold War stimulants, the chocolates were — posed to win every championship, the Illini were! 

This last statement shakes Scout back to earth, and his rhyming ceases. Perhaps there’s an end to this tale, but not to the joy and cheer we can bring to others this holiday season. 

Across the Main Quad, hand in hand with a flash mob of ecstatic carolers, Scout looks across the picturesque scene to meet the glowing ghostly eyes of his oldest friend — Red Grange. Red Grange smiles and raises a parting hand. Perhaps it would be a while before Scout would return to campus for the holidays, or perhaps not. 

Whatever the case, at least every single e-scooter had been torched, and that is Campus Scout’s parting gift to 2025 — a long, lovely, livid, labyrinth of life. 

*Campus Scout writes opinion-based, satirical stories and uses fictional sourcing.*

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