Blair Chipotle closes down - UN declares cultural Emergency
The day is December 15, 2023. As students flood out after the 12:00 bell, they expect to follow a familiar routine. They will do as generations of Blair students have done before: head to the local Chipotle, order a burrito bowl with white rice and black beans, and settle down to enjoy their lunch. But instead of the welcoming facade of the red-black sign and the stained windows, they find themselves greeted by a pair of FBI agents. In a botched attempt to maintain closed-campus school lunch, the interior of the timeless restaurant has been accidentally demolished. The Chipotle will never open again. For Montgomery Blair students, this is a day that will live in infamy.
As a result of this closure, thousands of Blair students are reporting that they are going hungry. Arthur, a Blair freshman, says, “We’ve just been eating Chipotle for lunch almost every day. It's just been such an integral part of our culture, and now that that’s gone, we just don’t know what to do anymore.” Statistics seem to agree, with one poll showing that after the closure, 65% more students reported that they were not eating lunch, with the number one cited reason being the closure of the local Chipotle. Analysts are worried that if the crisis continues as is, over two-thirds of the student body will not reach the amount of daily calories recommended by the FDA.
This alarming trend is not only affecting food habits, but it is also affecting the way of life of the student body. One sophomore, Nathaniel Bingenheimer reports that, “It feels like months since I’ve last been through that alleyway, breathed in the scent of weed, and opened the door to an unreasonably long line. Without that experience for so long, it’s starting to feel like a part of me is just gone.” This sentiment seems to be shared by a majority of Blair students, as evidenced by the now-common trend of running into the bathrooms between periods just to try to experience even a facsimile of the smell of weed in the alleyway leading to the Chipotle. It is one of the last few holdouts from the pre-rapture era, but at least this relic of the past will remain a part of the Blair ecosystem for years to come.
The Blair Robot Project, the school robotics team, is getting hit especially hard by the closure. Often, the only things keeping the team running have been mass orders of Chipotle. So much so, in fact, that an intricate web of debt and favors has been built around the former restaurant, with the units of bargaining being not US dollars but instead Chipotle burrito bowls. Now, with the Chipotle closed down, the team is struggling to even get a robot built and the internal economy has collapsed with all previous Chipotle debts being called in. Reed Swearingen, one of the vice presidents of the team, has this to say about the situation: “Now that Chipotle is gone, you can see how demoralized the team is. Arms are being left unbuilt, transportation is being left unplanned, and meeting reports are just sitting there unfinished. We might not be able to attend the next competition. It’s really sad to see the mood of a team change so drastically in three days. But it makes sense, y’know? Take an integral part of our culture away, and there’s bound to be some confusion and discontent. There are a lot of people leaving for good. It’s just really sad.”
However, after-school activities across all categories are being hit hard. Without the comfort of the Chipotle, locals are hesitant to return back to school for events like sports games and plays. Before, the trauma that radiated out of the world languages hallway had been outweighed by the comforting knowledge that the local Chipotle always had an overpriced burrito bowl for each and every Blair student. However, now that that is no longer an option, Blair students are choosing to not come to these events.
After noticing signs of Blair culture being rapidly erased, such as the dying out of key Blair traditions such as skipping school and smoking weed in the nearby alleyway, UNESCO has stepped in to try to put the shattered pieces of the culture back together. Having declared a state of cultural emergency in the Four Corners area, UN officials have tried radical new programs, such as handing out free tickets to after-school events and the reintroduction of foreign Chipotles that will hopefully somewhat bring back a sense of tradition while a more permanent solution is being developed. How successful these attempts will be remains to be seen.
