Boston, MA: Once a silent space, the fourth floor of Snell Library is now the hotspot for nightly 100-dB screaming contests.
“EEEEEEEEEE! Hear that? That’s about 80 decibels. 20 decibels higher, and I’ll breach the sound barrier. That’s what we want. EEEEEEEEEE! Right there, 100 decibels. 100 decibels breaks glass. We want to shatter every window on the fourth floor of Snell,” explained Sam Bam, a regular screaming contestant.
Warm-ups begin daily at 2:00 PM, and contestants advance to full-on, monkey screaming by 7:30 PM.
“We build up to the contest all afternoon. Eeeeeeeeee. Like chihuahuas. Eeeeeeeeee. The sun goes down—we rage. We rage. Yeah, EEEEEEEEEE!” said Sam Bam.
The contest ends when a window pane breaks clean from its frame, typically around 3:00 or 4:00 AM. All remaining screamers are winners, and awarded stuffing from the blue couches as prizes.
49-time winner Tiffany Belch drinks 0-pH battery acid before her massive wins.
After screaming the E-flat scale, Belch explained, “I’m a classically trained singer. DO-RE-MI-FA-SO-LA-TI-STINKY-JESUS-I’M-SHARP! Took up a-capella with The Nor’easters just because. MEE-ee-OW! MEE-ee-OW! MEE-ee-OW! Most singers do a spritz of lemon juice, to reach those high notes—MOMMY!—but I go straight for the battery acid.”
Tonight, Belch is set to win her fiftieth consecutive screaming contest, after which she’ll “eat that couch, no not that one—no, THE BIG ONE, puckered boy—and half the floor’s carpet, as well.”
Below the fourth floor, the screaming contests are a nuisance. Third floor cubicle mole, Remy Whiskers, complained, “See, see, I come here to study. And, and, if some, if some LUNATIC—sorry, sorry—if some lunatic, starts, starts whooping and hollering—well, I’m not gonna study, I’M NOT GONNA STUDY, AM I? And if I’m not gonna study—GOD—tell me what I’m gonna do. Suck me, and TELL ME WHAT I’M GONNA DO!”
However, despite major student pushback, the screaming contests will rage on for the rest of the semester, with the top five competitors battling it out in a 150-db All-Star Championship during finals week.
