Some Wounds Never Heal

I had an idea for my dorm’s t-shirt. On the bulletin board in the hallway, just inside the main entrance to the building, our dormitory council would post the minutes from its weekly meetings, and occasionally post announcements. On this bulletin board had been posted a flier asking for t-shirt ideas, and I had a damn good one and submitted it. All my friends agreed with me how damn good it was, and since many of them lived in my buildiing I figured I had a decent shot at making my idea a reality.
The name of our dormitory was Custis Hall, after Mary Custis, our first president’s something or other.
My idea was for a simple black shirt, across the front printed the slogan “CUSTIS IS THE BUSTIS.”
I loved this idea, and lobbied it hard with all the appropriate people, as well as some of the inappropriate ones.

“Kate!” I yelled to my high school friend and dormitory council president, “Kate! I need to ask you about the t-shirt!”
“We haven’t decided yet, Andrew.”
“Well do you have any alternative ideas?”
“Yes, Krista suggested a top ten list.”
“Oh Jesus fucking Christ, Kate, that’s ridiculous. Really? A top ten list? We’re gonna be another shirt with a top ten list? You can’t be serious. I refuse to believe that you are serious. If you are serious I will take my underwear off over my head. Sincerely. Holy Christ, that’s dumb.”
“Well, Andrew, I appreciate that you fell strongly about this, but some of us on the council feel that your idea might be too, well, simple.”
“Simple?!”
“And nonsensical.”
“Excuse me please, I’m going to my room to drink a bottle of vodka.”

That week I went from door to door in our little building trying to muster support for my shirt.
“It’s a plain black t-shirt, and across the front it says: ‘CUSTIS IS THE BUSTIS!’”
“I don’t get it.”
“Well, it doesn’t exactly make sense, that's why it's good. It sounds like it means something positive, but it’s just nonsense really. It also rhymes.”
"Alright, thanks- we’re gonna get back to watching Titanic.”

I wasn’t there when the council met, I found out from the minutes posted on the bulletin board-- they decided on a top ten list. Not only that, they bastardized my idea and named their shitty top ten list, “The Top 10 Reasons Custis is the Bustis.” They seemed to think this was a compromise, but I was outraged. “CUSTIS IS THE BUSTIS,” was the complete antithesis of a top ten list-- it was a proud declaration of absurdity and silliness, a bold statement that our dorm thought for itself, a joke that felt inside but wasn’t, good and pure and hilarious on a dozen different levels, and they had taken my precious gift, wiped their unimaginative, mediocre asses on it, and gone back to watching Titanic.
With a sharpie I wrote across the minutes, “CUSTIS IS UNJUSTIS,” and stormed off to the campus center for an overpriced chicken sandwich.