POUGHKEESTOP, NY– As students returned from summer break this year, many came back with the great anticipation that comes with preparing one’s body to endure high levels of stress, have sex again and play the year’s hottest app, Pokemon Go. However, as soon as students started walking around campus (for the first time without some sort of complaint), ready to catch the dank Pokemon native to upstate New York, they noticed something or more specifically, someone, was amiss.
Students searched and searched. They wandered under the sex tree, explored the periodical section of the library and even walked inside Raymond. But to no avail. One of the most notable Pokemon indigenous to this area, the Cappy, was nowhere to be found. After consulting with some of the highest ranked Pokemon experts, economists, nerds and political scientists in the country, it is with heavy hearts that we at The Miscellany News report that Cappy is very likely extinct from Vassar.
Ever since the first report of Cappy inhabiting Vassar, which dates back about 10 years, this rare Pokemon has always been an enigma to the student body. At first, no one could get close to her, let alone figure out where she was on campus. It was obvious that she was here because she had made her nest in the middle of campus, right near the chapel. After a few years on campus, however, most students figured out that Cappy could be sighted in the College Center on Tasty Tuesdays, the Rose Parlor bathroom or standing awkwardly at the periphery of a student protest.
For even though she was hard to find, once spotted, no one could mistake her idiosyncratic features. Every Pokemon has them. For Pikachu, it’s the thunderbolt tail. For Bulbasaur, it’s the leafy shell. For Gengar, it’s the intensely creepy smile which makes you super uncomfortable. For Cappy, it’s the plume of gray hair, toothy grin, glasses and her vast collection of neck scarves.
During this time, through careful documentation of her behavior, students were also able to put together a comprehensive Pokemon profile for Cappy. There are many different types of Pokemon: normal, fighting, water, ghost, flying, psychic and poison, to name a few. What they discovered is that she is the rarest Pokemon type: an administrative Pokemon.
As such, Cappy’s strengths included hiding from students, wooing alumnae/i, and sending campus-wide emails. Conversely, her weaknesses included getting distracted when anyone started talking about need-blind financial aid policies, catching on to millennial slang and smoothies from Twisted Soul.
Further, much like Hillary Clinton, Cappy was completely vulnerable to any kind of classic working woman pantsuit. Cappy tended to get along with other Pokemon that were more likely to follow the Vassar College rules and regulations. Students also noted that Cappy did not get along with other Pokemon that camped outside her office for a week as a part of VC Divest. And Clefairy, she did not get along with that guy at all.
Currently the cause of Cappy’s sudden extinction from Vassar’s campus is not fully known or understood. There were some scientific reports that Cappy would be migrating out of the area within the 2016-2017 school year, but this extinction from Vassar’s campus is far more abrupt than first anticipated. Some speculate that Cappy’s more abrupt exit may be in part because she felt underappreciated and criticized as an administrative Pokemon. Others think that she left campus because the ultimate battle between herself and some pro- BDS students wore her out greatly. There is even a conspiracy theory that Cappy may have skedaddled off campus because Meowth retired and she wanted to take his place on Team Rocket.
What is known is that wherever Cappy moved to (rumors also abound that she may have been sighted building her nest at the Ithaka S+R building in Manhattan), she is amenable to visiting campus. The Miscellany News received multiple reports this past Sunday stating that Cappy may have attended Fall Convocation in the chapel. This makes sense as Cappy frequented the rafters of the chapel because that view, distant and weird, was her favorite way to observe students. But considering no one actually goes to Convocation besides a bunch of black-out drunk seniors and really confused freshmen, the sneaky Cappy remained uncaught.
Even before Cappy’s legacy has been determined on campus, students now begin to wonder what kind of new Pokemon will be chosen to repopulate Vassar. A search committee (different from the myriad students meandering around instead of doing problem sets) has commenced and I for one hope they choose a Pokemon that is not of the white, male variety. And honestly, how could they? To be fair, I have no idea how the search process works. I don’t know anything about Pokemon, but I’m sure there are so many qualified, intelligent, diverse and non-white male candidates for…Pokemon that the search committee could choose. But God, I also hope that it’s not another Pidgey. I have way too many of those useless fucks and they’re goddamn everywhere.