With the spring semester now in full swing, all kinds of sicknesses are spreading around campus. Hamline has come prepared for this ill season, however, with their latest invention for students: the Barf Box.

“Now, when students throw up in their room, they have two options,” explained junior Resident Assistant (RA) Bashir Imady. “You can pay $200 and have cleaning staff come take care of it, or you can pay $20 to purchase the Barf Box. This neat little box comes with all the cleaning supplies you might need to handle the situation yourself.”

Students have split opinions on the Barf Box.

“I guess I like the idea of it,” first-year and Oracle photographer Gannon Larson said. “It’s nice that it comes with the essentials for cleaning stuff like that. $20 seems like a bit high of a price for college students to pay, but it’s definitely better than the $200 alternative.”

Other students think the Barf Box is a terrible idea.

“I think this Barf Box is just ridiculous,” first-year Sam Reiten said. “I doubt that the actual cleaning supplies included would cost $20 to buy on your own. It seems like there’s some sort of profit margin, as if the campus is trying to profit off of its students being sick or drunk.”

There seems to be a silent understanding among students that the main audience for the box are the students who may throw up for non-illness related reasons.

“It’s definitely targeted towards drinking students,” first-year Kiley Eck said. “As far as my understanding goes, there were tons of students last semester who got very drunk and threw up on their floor. This Barf Box thing is meant to allow drunk students to clean up their own mess. I don’t think it’s really going to fix anything though, especially since a drunk student likely isn’t in the right mindset to clean up in that sort of situation.”

This hypothesis is consistent among students.

“It’s definitely related to alcohol,” Larson said. “Our RA said that there was a definite issue with drunk students and vomit last semester, so the Barf Box was created. If that’s the reason behind it, though, I don’t think this sort of thing should apply to all situations. There’s lots of other reasons a student might puke on their floor besides being drunk, and I don’t think it’s very fair to have students pay for simply being sick.”

“The box is, in fact, in response to issues with alcohol,” junior RA Dan Ziebarth confirmed. “I’m not really sure if it will help much though, to be honest. Most students make it into the hallways or bathroom before throwing up. When that happens, we can’t really identify who the culprit was.”

Other students agreed that there were situations where the Barf Box is unfair.

“The way it was explained to me, it sounded like students would still have to pay even if they were sick,” Reiten said. “Students shouldn’t have to pay money for being sick. Whether it be $20 for the Barf Box or $200 for it to be cleaned by the staff, it’s too expensive for this kind of situation. These prices have been incorrectly adjusted for inflation.”

Interestingly enough, though the Barf Box has been presented to many students, it’s unclear to many how to go about purchasing one.

“Now that I think about it, I actually have no idea how to buy one,” Reiten said. “I’m okay with that though, because I wouldn’t plan on purchasing one anyways. I’m not one to drunk vomit on my floor, and I don’t find it fair to have to pay money for being sick.”

Part of the reason that there is some confusion with purchasing the barf box has to do with the fact that they have not arrived on campus yet.

“They actually haven’t shipped in yet, at least not to Drew Hall,” Ziebarth said. “Once they get here, though, they’ll be stored in the staff room. Residents will just have to ask and give the money to their RA’s, and then they will receive the infamous Barf Box.”