How Important are TU’s Sprinklers in the Maintenance Economy?
If you ever take a walk at night, you’re bound to see the campus sprinkler system, hard at work making sure all of TU’s grass stays green and healthy. While it might seem like nothing worth thinking too much about, the truth is that it’s really important that those mechanical nozzles spray everything in their path (sidewalks and lampposts included). The layman may see nothing but an unnecessary waste of water, resources, and a general inconvenience anytime you need to walk somewhere at eleven o’clock when they’re scheduled to go off (sprinklers have a bed time too; it’d be cruel to make them stay up until two to do their job). However, the scorn many aim towards our sprinklers is in clear ignorance of just how important these watery clankers really are.
To start with, our sprinklers are very-hard working, blue-collar types, and they like, reaalllly need the money. These guys are just like your average construction worker: they work terrible hours, receive terrible pay, and are generally complained about (not to mention both groups seem to run solely on chemicals unfit for human consumption). It’d be cruel to put them out of a job, or to even take away their hours on days when it’s raining. These sprinkler heads are just like every other hard-working American: overworked, underpaid and they’ve got hoes hose at home to feed.
Of course, while on the subject of campus clankers, it’s also absolutely necessary to mention the jobs of the automated mowers on Dietler Commons. The sprinklers and the mowers share a symbiotic relationship, kind of like RFK Jr. and his brainworm. The mowers need the sprinklers to water the grass every night, otherwise the grass would just give up and die since the mowers cut the grass so unreasonably short. This in turn provides the sprinklers with more hours, and both groups benefit by creating work for each other. Nobody is so evil as to want to destroy two different groups’ livelihoods right?
Now of course one might be wondering, “Why exactly does the grass need to be cut so short at all?” For an answer, Collegian reached out to the Board of Trustees. Unfortunately, they were too busy trying to sell the school presidency to the Murdock family to comment. So for now, we just have to accept that it’s absolutely necessary. And honestly, who cares if the university is wasting money dumping water onto sidewalks and roads? Who cares that the sprinklers go off when people are still actually walking on campus and not when anybody reasonable is in bed? Who cares that for some God-forsaken reason the sprinkles aren’t programmed to only spray the grass and not literally everything else too? At the end of the day, those sprinklers show up and work hard; what more can be asked for?
