The Pinkening

By Trevor Nichols

On the night of the 21st of May, 2023, the entire Dalat High School was turned upside down as the Senior Prank occurred. As the academic year was nearing its end, the Seniors took one last effort to leave their mark before their departure.

Around 8:00 PM, the experiment began: seniors completely inconspicuously began filing onto school grounds, gathering in clumps much like little bacterial colonies on an agar plate.

T+ 10 minutes — these aggressive colonies began infecting the school ground: inflating pink balloons throughout the stairways and classrooms, throwing pink streamers all around the railings, painting posters pink, vandalizing windows with pink markers, and even rolling out a pink carpet. As Chris Jang (12) says: "We could've had more pink. Sorry, we SHOULD've had more pink."

T+ 1 hour — both auxiliary stairwells in the school have been fully infected are are no longer functional. The functioning pathways have been completely blocked with pink balloons, and in the words of David Kim (12), "it was very pink."

T+ 1.5 hours — the pink carpet has been taped down to the main stairway at school as the poster symbolizing Dalat's unity under a single motto gets completely defaced with imprints of each individual bacterial cell.

T+ 2 hours — the redecoration of school windows has finished, complete with inspirational and life changing quotes such as "The 11th commandment: Thou shalt not assume." At this point the cleanup almost concludes as the bacteria move on to a new host.

The morning after, the ultimate effect of the disease could be seen in full force. Initially the incapacitated stairwells were remedied by the school antibodies, however the other symptoms of infection were not treated till much later. As students flood in school gates, they find themselves surprised at what has happened to their own high school, and how badly they failed to protect their own. In the words of Moriah Winsor (12), she recommends that this prank is "not advised for the globophobic" as the balloons fly all around the school.

In retrospect, several seniors said they had hoped for a more impactful prank upon the school. As Chris Jang expertly formulates: "I was hoping for our prank to be more like the previous class's who's rubber duckies we still see around today. But maybe not as polluting." As much as we enjoyed the prank, the senior class collectively hopes that they set an example for future years.