Macdonald Hall #2: Go Jump in the Pool

Jingle fever

"This contest thing," grumbled Boots, "is costing us twenty-five G's in postage alone."

"Toss me another one of those entry forms for the Sudso Detergent Cash Giveaway," said Bruno. "We're bound to win if we enter enough of them."

"Cool Cola! Snuggums Longjohns! Sudso Detergent! Bibble Bubble Gum!" snorted Boots. "This is insanity!"

"It's this kind of insanity that's going to keep people like you out of places like York Academy," Bruno retorted. "We've got to win something. Two whole campuses are heart and soul into this campaign."

That was true. Every magazine and comic book was ripped to shreds as students searched for entry forms. Cold cereal was enjoying an unprecedented popularity at breakfast so that more boxtops would be available. Macdonald Hall's outgoing mail filled ten sacks instead of the usual two. Students were occupied with praising products in fifty words or less, and inventing catchy jingles to sell everything from toilet paper to limousines. "I've got it!" Bruno exclaimed. "Listen to this: Cool Cola tastes just great, Buy a bottle, maybe eight. If you really like the stuff, You can never get enough. How about that, eh?"

"Maybe eight?" Boots repeated. "What about all those numbers in between? You know, like sevens, twos, fours."

"None of them rhyme with 'great,' " said Bruno. "I'm sending it in. It's a cinch."

There was a polite knock at the door. "Am I interrupting anything?" came the timid voice of Elmer Drimsdale.

"Oh, nothing much," called Boots sarcastically. "Only the greatest jingle ever to sell a bottle of pop — or maybe eight. Come on in."

Elmer entered the room. "Could you please spare an entry blank for the Cool Cola jingle contest?" he requested. "I think I've come up with the winner."

"A tie!" crowed Boots. "We have a tie! Let's hear it." Elmer cleared his throat:

"Caffeine for your addled pate, Carbohydrates for your weight, Make your thorax palpitate — Get Cool Cola by the crate." Without a word Bruno handed over an entry blank and Elmer rushed off to complete it.

The scene was similar that evening in many Macdonald Hall rooms. In 107, Chris Talbot was labouring over a piece of paper.

"Hmmm. Let's see," he said slowly. "I eat Snappy Wapples for breakfast because ..."

"They taste like sawdust," finished his roommate.

"Well, yes, they do," Chris admitted, "but I can't put that. So I'll put that they're delicious and they set me up for the whole day. That should win me something."

* * *

Pete Anderson leaned back in his chair and surveyed his work with great satisfaction. "I've just completed a hundred and nineteen entries for the Happy Elephant Jellybean contest," he announced to his roommate. It's that count the jellybeans in the jar thing. Surely one of my guesses has to be right."

"Mmmm," said his roommate absently. "What rhymes with refrigerator?"

* * *

"Listen to this!" said Mark Davies to Louis Brown.

"What a shine from Gleam-o Wax!

It really takes those hits and whacks.

You couldn't scratch it with an axe!

A dollar ten, including tax."

"Pretty good," admitted Louis, "but naturally it's not a match for this: Use a Smith foot-odour pad, And your feet won't smell so bad."