See The Light by The Breakfast
[audio:http://www.archive.org/download/breakfast2007-10-06.483.flac16/breakfast2007-10-06d1t03_64kb.mp3]
Saturday morning arrived, and I woke up early. I had a mission, which was rare for a weekend. But I had to save the desert sea lion. When we concieved of this idea weeks ago, the original idea was to chill in the dining hall for a whole day. Somewhere along the line, we thought to make a fake cause to justify hanging around all day. Later on Ali came up with ‘Save the Desert Sea Lion(s)’, which stuck.
So on Saturday morning around noon, I arrive in the dining hall with some poster paper, some lined paper, and some markers. I dick around and eat until more friends start to arrive later on. We draw up a sign on the poster paper, and set it up hanging off the side of the table. This is when people start to notice us.
Part of our idea was to have a mailing list that asked for really intrusive and personal information. The first draft of this included Social Security Number and Sexual Activity. Most people quickly caught on that it was a joke when they saw the mailing list. We revised it to see if we could really get some signatures. The new mailing list asked for Name, Blood Type, Eye Color, Shoe Size, and Y/N. Note how none of these have anything to do with sea lions, or how we don’t ask for any sort of contact information on our mailing list.
We were able to get some signatures before a serious looking guy walked up to us and told us we would have to move outside. “We don’t let the guys with Bibles in here, and you can’t be here either.” So he set us up with a table right outside the entrance of the dining hall, and said we’d be able to go in and get food whenever we wanted to, we just couldn’t try to save the sea lions inside. So now we’re VIP. We also have a little more credibility since people are used to seeing folks outside the dining hall for one reason or another. More and more signatures fill the page, until we have to start another list. Most people didn’t question the relevance of the things on our mailing list, or ask about how we would contact them.
A couple listened to our story of the Desert Sea Lions, and signed up, although they were a bit skeptical. They left, only to come back five or so minutes later and erase their names from our list. They told us “We just Googled it and it said they don’t exist.” I’m curious where the page is on the internet that says “Desert Sea Lions Don’t Exist.” (here)
We wanted to change up the mailing list anyway just to see what would happen. It seemed in line with the rest of the stuff we were doing (facts we proclaimed changed from person to person). Our next mailing list asked for Name, Blood Type, Eye Color, Date of Birth, and Hometown. This drew even less questions than the first mailing list. I’m not sure how that’s so. This information is much more important to a person than Shoe size or Y/N. During this round a girl casually mentioned as she was signing that she was an Animal Science major. Eric asked if she had heard of the Desert Sea Lion. She told us “Yes, but I didn’t know they were endangered…the Discovery Channel is a wonderful thing.”
The second page of signatures fills up, and our third changes it up again. We ask for the same info as on the second sheet, but GPA replaces Date of Birth. This page fills up as well, just as the dining hall is about to close. All in all, over one hundred people concerned about the plight of the desert sea lion. Incredible.