Like many other peeps today, I took the Annoying Quiz.

Because I am nothing but sweetness and light, I scored a 34 on the first test and a 49 on the second.

My first test feedback:

Our experts are please to report that you are a tolerable, if not pleasant. You should be proud of your annoyance rating (unless you lied on your quiz, then you're a complete bastard!)

A tolerable what? 'Please'???

My second test feedback:

Bravo for being open minded and personable, but you often make dumb decisions in areas that you know little about. Although your improvising skills are weak, you deserve respect for your benevolence and occasional common sense. "The secret to not being annoying is the balance between courtesy and certitude," says Team Annoy tech guy, Keith. "You may have the desire to be kind, but you never let it shadow your ambitions." Being Partially Annoying may be something to be proud of if you care for sub par results, but Team Annoy suggests that you work harder to achieve a less annoying status.

That is actually kind of insulting. I am quite good at improvising.

Anyway, one of the questions (about what you do when answering the phone) had "shoot your neighbor in the ass" as a possible answer, and it reminded me of this sniper we had my freshman year of college.

He came from El Paso or Abilene or some other small Texas town where b.b. shooting is an acceptable hobby. The first week of school, he perched in his dorm room window and passed the time by shooting people in the ass when they walked on this certain part of the sidewalk. After several people (both faculty and students) complained to Campus Safety about pinging ass pains, an officer was sent to search the dorm and discover who this mystery sniper was.

Mind you, this was the same Campus Safety whose column of weekly reports in the student newspaper covered not just the stereotypical items about people getting their purses stolen from study carrels in the library and Campus Safety officers smelling 'strange burning scents' from students' dorm rooms, but also items like:

• An employee of a local business was escorted off campus property by a Campus Safety officer and his gym privileges were revoked. He was found wearing a pair of (college sports team) basketball shorts that had been missing from the men's locker room.
• Relatives of a dormitory resident removed the resident's belongings from her room without her knowledge.
• A dorm resident returned from Christmas break and thought his radio had been stolen. The situation was resolved when it was discovered that one of his friends had it.
• A former employee of (college) was found laying on the ground in an intoxicated state, with some small cuts on his face.
• A TV/VCR cart belonging to the graduate school has been missing for two weeks.
• A file cabinet fell on a student in the library.
• A small brush fire started near a campus building. It was slowed down by a Campus Safety officer using a fire extinguisher, and then was put out by the city fire department.
• A (college) student and another unknown suspect attempted to take a piano out of a residence hall.
• A student put his keys inside his tennis shoes and left them next to a bus stop. When he returned, both his keys and his shoes were gone.
• A landscape worker accidentally shattered a glass door to the gym while he was using his weedeater.
• An employee of an outside company tore his pants on an iron chair.
• A (college) student stole and was apprehended with the Print Shop sign.
• A student reported that the cover to her vehicle had been stolen.

The Print Shop sign item is about a friend of mine. He said he took it because he "liked shiny things."

The vehicle cover was me. The only reason I reported it was because I wanted to be a superstar in the Campus Safety column. Obviously it was one of the highlights of the newspaper. My other attempt to at least manipulate an item into appearing in the column was when some friends and I (anonymously) reported a girl from down the hall for picking bluebonnets (as they are the Texas state flower, this was a serious offense). Much to our disappointment, the officer who answered the call just gave her a lecture about proper treatment of flowers and didn't write her up. :(

You can see why people might be dubious about Campus Safety's chances of finding the mysterious sniper. In fact, their search was nearly foiled when the sniper took the pains to remove one of the tiles in his dropped dorm room ceiling and hide the gun up there. In the end, I think his roommate turned him in, probably so he wouldn't have to room with such a crazy anymore.

The guy got expelled, and seeing as how even when he left he still didn't understand why shooting people's asses is different from shooting at beer cans on a fence, this was probably for the best.

No one talked about the sniper again until the newspaper staff was trying to think up items for our April Fools' page. I suggested we do a story about the (college) sniper returning to campus and going on an insane rampage that ended with him climbing our campus tower and shooting people from there. We all agreed that that would be funny, but in too poor of taste to actually print.