Note: This article is a part of the April Fool’s day edition, The Scoop, and is not meant to be taken seriously.
When students returned from spring break last weekend, a strange new affliction greeted them.
The aptly named “dance fever” appears to be spreading across campus at an unprecedented rate. Symptoms include uncontrollable kicking, twirling and hip-shaking. Some serious cases have even provoked students to kick-ball-change, moonwalk and do the worm.
The first report was made late Monday evening, when 13 students were caught weaving a conga line through Bradley Hall. According to an anonymous professor, when the students were told to stop, they refused, claiming they couldn’t…
Or else.
“If they don’t dance, they’ll die,” Katy Berry, a freshman bubblegum-blowing major, said. “Like, literally.”
Berry has yet to catch the fever, but her roommate, Hazel Knutt, was one of the first to fall ill. Knutt was asked to leave her desperate housewives history class after repeatedly doing the whip-nae-nae, according to her professor, Robbie Rinna.
“I’m sorry, but she must have done it six or seven times,” Rinna said. “It was just too much. How was I supposed to know it was from some sickness?”
Knutt has not been back to class since the incident. No one has seen her since Tuesday afternoon.
“I’m telling you, we were in our dorm, she stopped dancing, and she popped – just like a perfect gum bubble,” Berry said. “She couldn’t have been sitting still for more than an eight-count before she just … burst.”
No other reports of students “bursting” have yet come forth. Some speculate the real reason for this may be that dance fever isn’t a new illness at all.
“You know why I didn’t know about this sickness? Because it doesn’t exist,” Rinna said. “These kids will do anything to get out of the rest of the semester. They don’t want to be here. Heck, I don’t even want to be here.”
Several feverish students have denied these allegations and claimed they were too busy dancing to explain their side.
Only Daisy Swayze, a junior majoring in ‘80s pop culture, stopped long enough to make a statement.
“I don’t know what we have to do to convince you guys this is legit,” Swayze said. She did the iconic “Walk Like an Egyptian” move while she spoke.
“What’s the big deal anyway?” she continued. “It’s not like any of the dancing has been dirty.”
With class attendance continuing to drop and campus sidewalks becoming cluttered with swaying bodies, the Bradley University Police Department has launched an investigation into dance fever, where it came from and how it might be cured.
In the meantime, officials advise students to maintain a safe distance from active dancers and, if symptoms appear, to keep moving.
Because, as Lady Gaga would say, the category is: dance or die.
