This article is satirical and fake, including quotes. It is a part of our annual Rectrum special April Fools edition.

President Cook recently appointed a special task force after a slew of
complaints about the foul smells that blow through campus were sent to his
office. “We need to get to the bottom of this issue before anyone else leaves
their window open overnight and needs to fumigate their room,” he said at the
initiation ceremony for the force.

Leading the task force was Burton Mayfield, a self-proclaimed super-sniffer.
“You ever see Psych? They actually modeled Gus after me,” he said. “I used to
work at ski resorts sniffing people out after avalanches…just about put those
rescue dogs out of business.”

On Monday night the task force got to work and followed the scent trail to
the horrifying source of the smell—a deep, wide pit filled with something dark
and rancid. “People were throwing up, running away, it was terrible,” said
Mayfield with a shudder. “I’ll never forget that stench, not in a million
years.”

“At first none of us could tell what was in the pit, what with our eyes
watering and everything, but then I saw something that was definitely a grilled
cheese sandwich down there, and things started to click,” said Chip Podolinski,
another member of the task force. Their suspicions were confirmed when a dining
center employee appeared with a wheelbarrow full of leftovers. Either not
noticing or not caring that eight people in official uniform were watching him,
he dumped the wheelbarrow into the pit and walked away.

“It was a classic case of misguided composting,” said Mayfield. “Here they
were with a pit full of honey garlic chicken, scrambled eggs and meatloaf,
hoping that it would return to the soil, and instead, it was just suffocating
everyone on campus.”

The next step for Mayfield’s task force will be to have the pit emptied and
filled with dirt again, but they are having trouble finding anyone willing to
take the job due to the smell.

“We just wanted to do something nice for the community by adding nutrients
back into the soil,” said a representative from NDSU Dining when asked for
comment. “It took six days of working around the clock for our employees to dig
that hole, and now these people want to fill it? The smell will go away once
the composting part happens and everything turns to soil…probably.”

“I missed my own birthday party digging that hole,” said one Dining
employee, who asked to remain nameless to protect their employment status. “I
don’t want all of my hard work to go to waste, but on the other hand, I did
leave my window open the other day and now I have to burn everything made of
fabric in my room.”

Students are encouraged to reach out to administration to advocate for the
pit to be filled so that they can once again breathe freely outdoors.