I was born in Orlando, so I'm no stranger to tackiness. Much of the area surrounding Disney World is surrounded by non-Disney-affiliated attractions, outlet malls, "tourist stops" offering discount tickets to Disney World if you're buying for a family of 23, and of course themed restaurants. Japanese Chefs light things on fire, knights joust, Emeril Lagasse says Bam! and adds fistfuls of salt, all right at your table.

But our campus bookstore is apparently trying to get a foot in the door in the tacky crap industry with a new line of t-shirts they offer. The shirts are solid-colored and have the word "Twelfth" on the front of them in block letters. That's it. The "twelfth", of course, refers to Washington U.'s latest ranking in U.S. News and World Reports' Semi-Annual Which College is Best Bribe-a-thon Issue. The sheer lameness of this shirt is appalling. I should start manufacturing shirts that read "I am a Humongous Tool", because if you're the kind of person who would buy a shirt advertising your college's ranking on it you would probably be in the market for my offering.

All this begs the question: Do other schools have these shirts? Does the University of Georgia, for instance, sell a shirt that says something like "EIGHTH!!!" and then in tiny letters on the back "amongst public universities in the state of Georgia"? Do schools like Harvard and Stanford sell shirts that say "We're Better than You"? What will happen to these shirts when next year we move into a 20-way tie for 11th?