Brian Saville ‘22
Tostitos Major, Gatorade Minor 

Life on the College of the Holy Cross campus as you know it will soon look a bit more… bubbly.

Last Wednesday, in an email with the subject line “Please Actually Read This One I Am Literally Begging You ❤ ❤ ❤ xoxo,” Dean Murray announced that effective this week, the college will operate as a subsidiary of PepsiCo, Inc. The current administration and board of directors will step down in favor of PepsiCo’s own personnel. “They [Pepsi] managed to install their state-of-the-art SodaStream machines all across campus, and we couldn’t even book Bridgit Mendler for our fall concert,” admitted an anonymous former administrator. “This was the right move for the college.”

It may have also been the only move. Pepsi’s imminent takeover of campus has been bubbling under the surface for years—through advertising, vending machines, and most recently the aforementioned SodaStream craze. The infiltration of the SodaStream Mobile onto the Hoval was the final nail in the coffin. The administration knew that their armada of smart cars could not take on a fleet of these SodaStream Mobiles, so it was just common sense to surrender before any blood (or Pepsi) was spilled. 

Pepsi’s takeover at this moment in history is not an accident. With students’ faith in dining services at an all-time low, of course they were going to bow down to their new, carbonated overlords. “I have to believe that a multi-billion dollar food and beverage corporation can get us Lower Kimball back,” commented Anita Chalupa, who fought valiantly in the tragic Battle for Lower Kimball. The current approval rating of the new Pepsi administration is a staggering 99%. The only holdout is Kyle, who drinks Coke. 

Students can expect to see the campus fizzling with changes in the coming weeks. All buildings will now bear the name of a PepsiCo subsidiary—Kimball will become Quaker Oats Hall (and yes, Lower Oats is back), Dinand will become Diet-nand Pepsi Library, and the Science Cafe will become Mountain Dew’gostino Cafe. The Jo has been confusingly renamed “Naked Fitness Center” after the brand of drink, though students should know that the dress code is still very much in effect. 

It’s not just names that will change; the Pepsi brand will spill into every corner of the academic and cocurricular experience. “At the College of the Pepsi Cross, our students will be men and women for and with Pepsi,” announced Ramon Laguarta, CEO of PepsiCo and 34th President of Pepsi Cross. “Soon, chemistry students will engage closely with our sacred Pepsi formulas and work in research labs to concoct new flavors, which we will test on live animals in the psychology department. Accounting majors will file our taxes, which I am told should be easier than their current curriculum, and the entire campus community can look forward to the theater department’s next original musical, She Loves Pepsi, premiering next Pepruary—I mean February—in Frito Theater. In the meantime, please help our new mascot Pepsiman cheer on the Pepsaders at their next football game on Lipton Field. 

It isn’t all sunshine and Doritos at Pepsi Cross, however. The administration has made it clear that they take brand loyalty very seriously. Any student caught drinking out of any non-SodaStream container will be expelled immediately. The COKE-VID-19 testing center will double as a blood testing station, and twice a week students will submit to a needle in their finger in addition to a swab in their nose. If any traces of non-Pepsi substances such as Coca-Cola, Barq’s, or Mug Root Beer are detected, then bam! Expelled. Alcohol is fine, and even encouraged, as long as it is mixed with a Pepsi product. 

We reached out to members of the ousted former administration for comment. “This is a legitimate transaction where a private Jesuit college is selling itself to a beverage company,” replied a resigned former president Vincent Rougeau. “What can you do? It happens somewhere everyday.”