Sarah McColl is an English major and art history minor. She’s from Delaware Township, N.J. Sarah thinks chips and salsa are a legitimate meal. Andrew Yeoman is a biology major from Houghton, Mich. and Bath, England who recently learned that cigarettes make you cooler. Katie LaZelle is a political science major and French minor from an eastside suburb of Seattle, Wash. She likes things sweet. Sarah, Andrew and Katie went out to drinks at the Turf Club on Tuesday night. Andrew ordered a gin and tonic (which glowed in the black lights), Sarah ordered a vodka and soda, and Katie ordered a whiskey sour.

SM: I was trying to think of what kind of angle we should take for this thing and I think it would be cool if we asked each other who you would sleep with—

KLZ: Fuck, chuck or marry? I kind of like the idea of, you know, most awkward moment in class—

SM: Most embarrassing fall?

KLZ: I don’t really fall that often.

AY: What’s your most embarrassing moment then?

KLZ: That’s the problem, I couldn’t really think of anything.

SM: I know that there have been multiple occasions when I have raised my hand and said, “I don’t want to be that girl, but it seems pretty obvious that this is about sex!”

KLZ: I’ve definitely turned into that girl. In my Manhood class we were talking about the prison industrial complex and how prisons are always separated by sex—

SM: Speaking of sex, and the first-year that you just said we could talk about (AY and KLZ laugh), he looked great on Saturday.

KLZ: Colin [Kennedy ’04] tried to donate sperm once—he told my Women’s Health and Reproduction class.

AY: They reject 90 percent of the people.

KLZ: Are you serious?

SM: Really?

KLZ: Wow. I had no idea.

AY: They want . . . high shooters. (SM and KLZ erupt in laughter)

SM: Katie, would you ever give eggs?

KLZ: If I was given money, yeah. I don’t have any ethical problems with shit like that; it’s kind of disturbing, actually.

AY: I didn’t think that I did until I got poor for a summer and I started considering sperm donation and then I was like, “I don’t want that in my life,” you know?

SM: You mean a little Andrew?

AY: Yeah, well, it’s been a concern before.

KLZ: The problem is that I don’t know if anyone would buy mine for the price that I would ask.

SM: What are you asking?

KLZ: Like, 20 grand.

SM: They pay big money, though.

KLZ: Yeah, they pay big money for 5’10’’-Ivy-League-law-school-blonde-and-blue-eyed-girls. I don’t know how much they’d pay for a 5’5’’ Macalester girl with $28,000 in student loans.

SM: I don’t know about that topic.

AY: Eggs?

SM: No. Student loans.

AY: Yeah. Maybe that’s an off topic for the tape. I think that every Spotlight should take place in a bar.

KLZ: No kidding.

(Discuss topics like strap-ons and sexual partners)

AY: I think that this is really funny that we’re almost trying to make this as offensive as possible so that nothing gets in.

KLZ: Wow. There are people trying to sell roses here. I’ve never seen that in the U.S. before.

AY: Can I tell a joke really quick?

SM: Sure.

KLZ: But I want to hear that hipster joke that you told the other day.

SM: Why did the hipster join karate?

AY: To get the white belt . . . okay. here’s my joke. It’s the worst one in the world, but also the best. What’s small, quiet and doesn’t like sex? The 5-year-old in my trunk. (SM erupts in laughter).

KLZ: That’s really terrible. But totally funny.

AY: There’s going to be nothing to put in the article. We should re-do this tomorrow when we’re all, like, sober. And do the more traditional thing.

SM: Well, what are you going to miss about Macalester, Katie?

KLZ: Well it sounds kind of petty, but . . . kind of the reputation thing.

SM: Oh—I was going to totally say being a big fish in a small pond.

AY: Yeah.

KLZ: You know, you spend four years becoming a person that people kind of know and have ideas about and I feel good about those things.

SM: Me too.

AY: Well, we’re all big fish in a small pond. A lot of people know who Sarah, Katie and Andrew are.

KLZ: I think I’m going to kind of miss that and I’m also going to miss knowing people and being able to describe a person in my class to anyone on campus and have them understand exactly who I’m talking about. Because this is the last time in our lives that our friends are all going to know the same people.

AY: Yeah, I won’t be able to say something about Lipstick Girl in the future and have people know who I’m talking about.

SM: Lipstick Girl? Who’s that? (KLZ proceeds to describe her to SM)

AY: She blows my mind every time I see her. Or like Running Boy, you know?

KLZ: It’s going to be hard to let go.

SM: And in a more intellectual sense . . . which is something that I often talk about being really happy to get away from . . . .I’m going to miss being valued as an intellectual because not being in academia anymore, it’s suddenly just about who you know and what music you listen to and what clothes you wear is going to really become the most important thing.

AY: Well, the three of us are lucky, though, because we already have all of that going for us. (All laugh)

SM: Although, that’s kind of my love-hate relationship with Friendster, I must confess. If I ever spend time going through and reading other peoples’ testimonials it starts to make me really insecure after a little while, because I’m like, “Oh my God. Everyone really loves this person!” and I act like it’s a zero-sum game—that if everyone really loves this person then it must mean that they love me less.

KLZ: What pisses me off about my testimonials from everyone, except for the two of you, is that everyone just goes on about “Katie has really great clothes! Katie speaks French!” and I just find that . . . well . . . sweet . . . but really boring. Am I really that shallow?

AY: Do you want me to write a new testimonial for you?

SM: I think I need to write a new one for you, because the only one that I have for you was that really mean one.

KLZ: What really mean one?

SM: I think it says something like “Would someone tell Andrew that he’s cool enough already?”

KLZ: You know, I used to think, what would my life be without the Internet, because of all of the e-mailing I did, but now I think, what would my life be without—

AY and SM: Friendster.

KLZ: In our future lives it’s going to be a really important tool for keeping up with people.

AY: I’ve already made contacts in Chicago with Friendster, I’m not afraid to say. I met a 26-year-old girl in Chicago that went to my high school.

KLZ: I heard that you’re moving to Chicago—I didn’t know this.

SM: No. I’m not. I said maybe I would. It’s a possibility.

AY: You really should.

KLZ: I’ve never been to Chicago so I want to visit once.

SM: I’ve never been to Chicago either, so I think it’s really important that I go a couple of times before I decide to move there. But let’s go back to Macalester, because aren’t we all feeling kind of warm and tender about it?

AY: Well, let’s see if I graduate.

KLZ: What are you going to miss? Besides being a big fish.

SM: I don’t know, the thing that really got me in Dev’s interview with you was when he said, “These have really been the best four years of my life,” and then I was like, “Oh, that’s so sweet.” And then I thought about it and I was, like, “No, really, these have been the best four years of my life.”

AY: No—exactly. These have by far been the best years of my life.

KLZ: It’s just been so much fun. I mean, even the parts that were shitty.

SM: They make for good stories.

KLZ: Exactly—like bad dates.

AY: I mean, I’ve been out of a two-year relationship for a month, you know, and I’m having a blast at Macalester, if that says anything.

KLZ: What’s nice here is that we’re all kind of strange. At the Senior Deception I just kept thinking, “There are so many different types of people here.” You know, “I hate that type of person. I wish I was that person. I don’t know that person . . . ”

AY: This is what it is: in high school you only gossiped about lame people; at Macalester everyone is pretty cool so all you do is gossip about cool people (SM and KLZ laugh).

KLZ: It’s been really good and it’s weird that we’ve spent four years here.

SM: And even if it sounds really chickenshit, that’s part of my reticence to leave St. Paul, is like, well I already know all of the cool balls—(SM stops herself and laughs)

AY: Cool balls?

KLZ: That’s a nice Freudian slip you’re wearing, Sarah.

SM: I meant to say that I already know what the cool bars are. There are fun neighborhoods that I have yet to explore, and I already know a lot of people here. Even if I’m not friends with them, we at least have Macalester in common and that can be a fine jumping-off point. And that’s where Senior Notes come into play. Let me tell you about Senior Notes. They’re going to be enacted next week?

KLZ: I need to talk to Edward [Donkor ’04] about that.

SM: Senior Notes are the last words that you have to people in our class before graduation.

AY: Holy shit. And it could be, like, “Hey I really fucked up when we blah-de-blah-de-blah” or it could be—

KLZ: — “I wish we had . . .”

SM: —or “You know what, I wish I had told you that you were the smartest person in our Intellectuality and Dialectic course.”

AY: So what they really are is Get Laid Notes.

KLZ: We can call them Get Laid Notes.

AY: I’m going to send one to someone that says, “I used to think that you were really hot, but now I don’t. Later!”

KLZ: When’s your radio show again?

SM: Tomorrow morning at 8. (All laugh) I’m going to stay out all fucking night, there’s no stopping me.

AY: I’ve got a bottle of red wine at home.

KLZ: So do I.