It’s a beautiful day outside: The mid October breeze glistening your face as you gallop across campus. Not a worry in the world. Nothing on Earth could ruin this glorious day, right?

Wrong.

Dead wrong.

What could ruin this delightful day, you may ask? I’ll tell you what will turn a day of bananas and pajamas into a living nightmare: getting taken out by a longboarder on campus. Yes, that’s right, longboarders.

What is this mysterious “boarding” you speak of? Long- boarding is the act of terrorizing the local students of FGCU by attempting to ride on a plank of wood with wheels at a dangerous speed. Throughout FGCU, many people have been affected emotionally and physically by this horrendous act.

Before we dig deeper into this matter, let’s take a look at the history of “longboarding.” Longboarding, also known as sidewalk surfing, has become quite popular in this era, but it originated long ago in Hawai in 1959 (Livestrong,Tadlock). Somehow, the tidal waves of Hawaii washed all these longboards to FGCU in the late 2000s, and nothing has been the same since.

I truly believe there is nothing wrong with strapping on your Etnies and “Shredding the gnar” in your local parking garage, but when you put other students’ lives in danger when you zoom by faster than a horse on steroids, then we run into a problem.

Local students have often complained about the terror on campus longboarders have caused.

“I was walking to the library and then I was suddenly taken out by an oncoming longboarder,” FGCU alum Brent Ely said.

“I almost ran one over in my car as he zoomed right by me as I was driving,” FGCU student Hagen O’Neil said.

These two FGCU students, along with myself, are not the only ones to notice this nuisance act. The FGCU code of policy has also been disturbed.

One glorious day on April 30, 2013, FGCU faculty banded together and prohibited longboarding in covered walkways and inside buildings. Fun fact: Did you know that if you are caught longboarding on campus in restricted areas, you can be written a ticket and fine?

Now, we’re not quite there to getting it completely banned on campus, but it’s a start. If this somehow manages to get published, I propose this to all the active longboarders: stop. Throw your longboard away and grab yourself a pair of Heeleys if you absolutely can’t walk to class like a normal person.

For the rest of FGCU, let me paint you a picture: You’re enjoying a wonderful stroll to class, laughing, talking, flirting, Instagramming. And all of the sudden, you hear something. What could it be? Silence, that’s what you hear, because longboarding has been completely banned off campus.

Join me in my campaign on ridding our campus of longboarding.

Much like North Korea, longboarding must be stopped.