First-Year From New York City Goes Into Shock On Trip Home

Emily Webber '13 had to be rushed to an area hospital on Wednesday when she flew home early for Fall Break. Webber immediately began convulsing upon exiting John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York and seeing the signs of civilization around her. A Manhattan native, Webber “dropped to the ground and started shaking like a maraca,” said bystander Jennifer Nakoma, 32, of Brooklyn. “She kept saying, 'The lights! The people!' over and over again. I was like, 'Honey, it's a Wednesday. There ain't even nobody here.'”

“She kept saying she needed to pick some things up at McNally's. Is that in SoHo or something?” said Enaka Seik, Webber's friend who picked her up from the airport.

Webber's Midwestern friends theorized that the extreme shock of going from two months in Grinnell to arriving in New York City again was too much for her. “When she first got here, Emily couldn't stop asking 'Why is it so tough to get a cab to East Campus? Where is the closest Saks?” said Clay Johnson '13 of Muscatine, IA. “She hadn't visited as a prospie, so she didn't really know that the only city-like feature of Grinnell is the graffiti in Burling basement.”

“But then she got used to it,” said Kimberly Nguyen '13 of Brainerd, MN. “She even gave all her stilettos to Second Mile and started wearing Birkenstocks every day. We were all a little on edge when she said she was going back home for Fall Break, but we figured that if she stayed out of Manhattan she wouldn't get overwhelmed by the fact that there's actually culture there.”

Eyewitnesses reported that Webber, who has lived in New York City all her life, started exhibiting strange behavior at the Des Moines airport.

“She was looking at me and my BlackBerry as if she wasn't quite sure we were real,” said Ben Robins, 57, of Cedar Rapids. “It was like a scene from that 'Enchanted' movie where the princess appears in a manhole and is like 'Say what?'”

At press time, Webber was in critical condition and unable to speak coherently, although when pressed for comment, she did say something that sounded like, “I need to get a MAP this summer.”