Police investigators breathed a sigh of relief last Tuesday after discovering Beinen freshman James Chavez in the second floor loft area of Allison dining hall, surrounded by scraps of the purple Class of 2023 shirt that he had consumed in order to stay alive. 

“We found the student heaped in the corner shirtless, experiencing extreme indigestion from eating his clothing,” said Special Investigator Linda Forsythe, who headed the search team that was formed after Chavez’s Peer Advisor Ryan DeShields noted his absence at a True Northwestern Dialogue assembly.

“Yeah everyone kind of figured James was trying to get out of the TND by sneaking off somewhere” DeShields recalled, “but I got really worried when he didn’t show up to group meditation. He would never miss the opportunity to align his chakras.”

Chavez claims he got stuck in the loft during the dinner rush, when the dining hall experiences congestion in front of meal serving areas. 

“I was caught between the food line and a group of students coming in the other direction, so I went up the stairs to avoid being trapped.”

Unfortunately, the first year music major was too afraid to find his way out of the labyrinth of superfluous structures and hordes of hungry students, so he remained in the loft until he was discovered the next day.

“I got the idea to eat the shirt after a moth crawled by my hand. I figured if it could survive by eating clothes, why not me?” He also drew inspiration from his favorite comic book villain Mothman, who eats his way out of a laundromat in the Batman comics in order to escape police custody. 

Chavez chooses not to dwell on the past and instead considers his future. “That shirt is going to feel a lot worse coming out than it did going in.”