Sopping confusion flooded across campus last week when the A5C laundry room offered a surprise greater than a passing grade in multivariable calculus. Much like every other member of your group presentation, the machinery had exactly one job — a job it failed at spectacularly. Last Wednesday, a load of laundry exited the dryer wetter than it entered.

“I’ve put it in for three cycles and each time it comes out more soaked than the last,” lamented Duzentklene Dalintskrene, Class of 2023. “I genuinely don’t understand. If my clothes were a student, Dean Mocktail Martinis would have kicked them out for violating our dry campus policy.”

A5C is not alone. Dryers across the residential colleges have long struggled to de-moisten the garments, towels and bedsheets of NYUAD Global Leaders™. It appears, however, that the campus might be at a tipping point. While long ago, laundry rooms adhered so closely to the laws of physics that Foundations of Science professors presented them as case studies in entropy, now they appear to have transcended the bounds of reality to no longer respect the conservation of mass.

“It’s truly remarkable,” marveled Diturjent Steelur, Class of 2024. “Just like my last time at the hotpot, after ninety minutes inside, it [the load] came out several kilos heavier. And every weekend, the cycle just repeats itself.”

When asked to comment on the counterproductive machines, the Director of NYUAD Facilities Ununownzd Mayntinants offered a cogent, if perhaps eyebrow-raising, explanation.

“Not only are we aware of how the dryers function, but we designed them that way,” explained Mayntinants. “It’s part of a university-wide set of policies that, in an effort to solve problems, ultimately only make them worse. Like how covering freshman grades only further feeds your anxiety, cutting the shuttles makes you queue up longer and sending you more communication only gives you more to complain about.”

On the subject of complaints, recent reports of laundry re-humidification were almost entirely drowned out by the continuing concerns over clothing theft.

“Forget imposter syndrome or depression, kleptomania is the mental health issue we need to be worried about,” said Gimmebak Mipantz, Class of 2022. “I accept that socks will go missing. That’s just the price of admission. But half my freaking wardrobe?”

“Honestly, why don’t they have security cameras there?” asked Tuhelwiv Miprivasie, Class of 2023. “Like I get the costs of installation and integrating them into the wider big-brother panopticon are probably steep, but how else can we expect grown-ass adults to respect basic social courtesy?”

These two troubling dilemmas coalesced in the tragic case of Justkant Evenanimor, Class of 2021. Prepping for her senior portrait, Evenanimor returned to the laundry to discover not only that her fashion was dripping in all the wrong ways, but that the outfit she’d planned to wear had vanished. With no other recourse, Evenanimor turned up to her portrait session in clothes soaking wet from head to toe.

“Is everything alright?” asked photographer Unesesari Tuchups. “You look like you’re drowning.”

“What do you mean?” replied the senior, who hadn’t worked on capstone in three weeks, just got rejected from her top choice grad school, was finally feeling last week’s breakup and had a mental breakdown the night before after counting the days left till graduation. “Everything is going just fine…”