Blair's holiday wish list

It's that time of the year again, the time when you're asked again and again what you want for the holidays, when your relatives are undeterred by your insistence that money and gift cards are fine and that you really aren't still interested in more dorky clothes from your Aunt Mabel. However, while you might not need anything this holiday season, Blair is definitely in need of some new gifts. So, in the spirit of the season, Silver Chips Online has put together a list of what Blair wants for the holidays.

A fourth floor (and a fifth, and a sixth, and…)
The new Blair has always been overcrowded. Three years ago, three portables satout back, and four more have been added since. MCPS has tried many things to alleviate the problem, but nothing has worked. It's time for drastic measures. We need another floor. It'd be easy enough to do: just build up some walls, doors and ceilings on the school's roof, punch some holes in the third-floor ceiling, add a rope ladder, and voilá! Blair will be 75 percent less crowded. Add two more floors, and you've cut the problem in half. After all, the more the merrier!

A super-secure parking garage
Every year, there are hundreds of complaints about Blair's parking lots. The student lot isn't big enough, and parents constantly invade it, increasing tempers and creating more negative energy around the school. And we can't have that. There is an easy solution to all of these problems: a parking garage. Built to Blair's new height, whatever that may be, the garage will have enough spaces for all students with cars, motorcycles or even snowmobiles. The garage will have several strategically located guard towers placed around the perimeter in order to ensure that no parent even thinks about invading the students' parking spots. Just in case some brave parent tries to get past the towers, three rows of tire spikes will make sure that they're stopped before they can even let out whoever's in their car. After that, Blair's own tow truck will drag them away, ensuring that they will never taint student parking again.

The old vending machines
In the past few years, it seems like everyone in a position of power in this country has tried to stop America's youth from becoming obese. Montgomery County caught this wave last year and decided to take away all the sugary and unhealthy treats in the vending machines, basically removing everything and anything that tasted a bit better then moldy cardboard, and causing a school-wide sugar withdrawal. For some reason, schools are confused about why vending sales are now down. That's a toughie. So this holiday season, just give Blair back it's old vending machines so that students can once again eat wonderful, delicious, sugary food, not recycling byproducts, for a snack.

Musical warning and late bells
The four dings that make up the warning and late bell could really use some updating this holiday season. Blazers would have more energy and enjoy the day more if there were different tunes played for each of the 12 times the bell sounds during the day. Bell DJs could compose their own mix of warning and late bell short songs. There could be special occasion tunes too: ones around the holiday season could have a festive theme, while ones around midterms would be dark and dreary.

Escalators
Backpacks seem to get heavier every year (and day), and that weight combined with the difficulty of climbing up and down stairs strongly suggests that the school could use a nice set of escalators. The new floors will add even more flights of stairs in Blair, and students just can't handle climbing up and down that many flights multiple times a day.

Blairbucks
Every day, loads of tired students swamp Starbucks before and after school in order to get a caffeine pick-me-up. However, Blair's neighbor has some outrageous prices and doesn't help with those middle-of-the-day nap blues. A coffee shop in Blair would be just the fix. For one thing, since Blairbucks isn't a nationally known name brand of coffee and doesn't yet have any shareholders, prices would be considerably less than what is found across the street. Since the shop would be accessible to students at all times, no one would ever have to be tired! Also, the profits from Blairbucks would benefit the school so we can afford all those new escalators.

High Tech Identification
It's a new millennium now, and ID cards are so last century. Students shouldn't have to carry around flimsy and annoying pieces of plastic just to prove that they go to Blair. It's the future now, and technology should save students from the plight of ID cards. With retina scanner installations every five feet and fingerprint scanners positioned at every door, Blair would be more secure than ever without students ever having to pay $5 for a lost ID again.

Freshman Global Positioning System
While the problem isn't as big this late in the year, every August and September, Blair is faced with a swarm of darting freshmen who are so lost that they probably would have found their classes better had they been blindfolded. If Blair assigned a Global Positioning System tracker to each of the new freshmen, this problem could easily be solved. When a student moved too far away from their class, an alarm would go off. If they wandered even further, a mild electric shock would quickly make them realize their error. Freshmen would quickly learn their way around the school and to their classes, and upperclassmen and teachers could be spared from listening to the millions of where-am-I questions asked every year.

While these modifications may not be perfect, it's obvious that every single one of them is absolutely necessary for Blair to ever be successful. So instead of spending your holiday money on a new pair of skis, maybe you should consider donating some of it to your school. After all, who doesn't want Blairbucks?

Happy holidays!