MIAMI DADE, Florida, August 13 — If you’ve ventured onto our Modesto A. Maidque Campus (MMC) within the last three months, you may be struck by some new additions to the landscape. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find an area that is not overcrowded with every variety of palm tree. MMC has, in these few short months, become an unrecognizable palm jungle. What used to be open grassy fields, and even open space between already present palm trees, has become crowded with impenetrable clusters of palms that seem to be placed at random.
Considering the absurd amount trees, it is not possible anyone in their right mind could have approved the sudden change to campus. We at PantherMEOW launched an investigation, and we have traced the deluge of trees to an error made by a purchasing clerk for MMC’s grounds-keeping department. The worker responsible, Eric Muñoz, was at first evasive over why the university spent an exorbitant sum of money on plants. But after we politely threatened to speak to his supervisor, he told us all. Muñoz confessed to us, “It was my keyboard’s fault!” It seems that Muñoz has had the same keyboard for the past fifteen years. After several requests to replace the antiquated piece of hardware, he was always met with excuses about budget constraints. He explained to us, “If I am typing too fast, some keys can get stuck.”
But how exactly did a faulty keyboard result in the overwhelming amount of trees sent to campus? Muñoz told us, “That day I was rushing, and they told me to make an order for 100 palm trees, you know, just for the 8th Street entrance. But, I guess when I went to enter the amount, the zero key got stuck. I didn’t notice and sent the order anyway.” This resulted in an order of 10 million palm trees when he only meant to order 100. As truckloads of palms arrived on campus, it was too late to back out of the deal. The palms were already purchased, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, and the university had no choice but to attempt to stuff the trees into every square inch of available land.
On the whole, MMC can now boast it has more palm trees than any other university campus on earth. However, Muñoz tells us that there will now be a massive shortage of parking. Both the Gold and Blue garage will be used entirely for storing any excess palm trees until further notice.
