[SATIRE] Phase 5: students to wear inflatable bumper balls to assist distancing, jousting tournaments to be held in gym, robots?

*Fifty42 is 42Fifty’s April Fool’s edition, and consists entirely of satire. This content is published purely for the purposes of humor and entertainment – it is entirely fictional and is not meant to be viewed as “real news” or taken seriously in any way. Any references to real people are based almost entirely in fiction.

On March 32, 2021, the school board announced that OHS will be entering phase 5. The plan includes a mandatory dress code policy: students must wear inflatable bumper balls to maintain proper social distancing. The plan states that students will be coming to school every so often along with a few other details that nobody cares about. 

“I don’t think anybody cares about anything in this plan…besides the bumper balls of course.” District Superintendent Dave Marlin said.

OHS gym teachers are instituting new and exciting opportunities for students with new phase 5 rules.

“The gym department got together right when the board meeting ended.” Physical Education Department Head Ms. Gymmy Feeldhouse said “We all decided that the best move for all gym classes would be to have bumper ball jousting tournaments…we know that students have been upset with how gym class has gone during e-learning so we felt that this would be the perfect way to get them up and have them enjoy class again.”

The announcement of these tournaments have excited teachers around the building, especially physics teachers.

“I’m stoked. I’m currently working on calculating the force that each student jousting will have.” Physics teacher Dr. Elbert Ainstein said. “If my FNET equations are correct so far, I believe we’ll have an upset. Once I finalize my research, I’m selling my house and betting all my money on my projected winner”

That’s right, the tournaments–officially named the Best High School Jousting Tournament West of the Mississippi Even Though We’re Actually East of the Mississippi, Probably Should Change That Before We Make the Name Official, Folks (the BHSJTWMETWAWMPSCTBWMNOF for short)–will be on the Vegas sportsbooks. There are currently no rules and no way of determining a winner.

“We’re just gonna have two students run at each other and whoever gets the most cheers from the class will move on to the next round.” Feeldhouse said. “If the winners in doubt the students can scream, ‘Division!’ and I’ll institute Robert’s Rules of Order, you know, ayes and nays. Should be fun, teaches the kids how the government really works: people sprinting full force at one another and Robert’s Rules of Order.”

The current odds on favorite to win the BHSJ–oh forget it–tournament is freshman Iam Notarobot.

“Yeah, I heard that I was the favorite. Notarobot said. “My factor–I mean parents are really proud of me right now.”

Despite recent allegations that factories are mass producing robots to compete in the newly announced bumper ball tournament in place of chronically absent students, no evidence has been found to back up the claims.

“Frankly, robots aren’t real.” CEO of Definitely Real Oswego Robots Incorporated Ms. Electrica Therobotmaker said.

Ms. Therobotmaker refused to comment further.

Students believe that there is reason to believe that the allegations may be true.

“Iam was literally short circuiting in the bathroom when he was pretending to be a person.” Senior Inhaylor O’Vayper said. “He used the sink and it was over. I think he was, like, scared that I’d notice he didn’t wash his hands. It was pretty funny, honestly.”

With current allegations aside, the tournament will be held in the Oswego High School field house during the first week of April. The matches will be streamed live on Fifty42 during every period of the day.