Between the snowstorm that prematurely ravished barely coated our campus in white, and the fact that it took more than 24 hours for South Lawn to see its first snow penis of the season, things have been pretty unconventional this semester. However, one thing—one Columbia species—has remained consistent amidst all of the chaos: the Butler-ites. Those people you encounter each and every day, in Blue Java, the Ref Room, as early on in your visit as the security desk. From bingo to midterm overseens to maladies, we’ve brought you Butler coverage before… but never like this. Join Marijuana Mole Matthew Schantz as he explores the first of many types of Butler-ite: that guy who smells like weed.

Police composite by Louise McCune.

Caught in the thick of Butler’s usual bouquet of smells—wafts of coffee, the tangy musk of Redbull, a mélange of creams in some Starbucks monstrosity, that decaying book smell—lurks a stranger: the pungent odor of weed. Stumbling into Butler smelling like he just hotboxed his Wien single for the last half-hour, this archetype is neither a master of subtlety nor of productivity.

After rustling through his book bag for close to 10 minutes he produces a laptop, a notebook, and a textbook. Over the course of the next hour and a half he will read the same page four times, underlining sentences only to erase the markings a moment later. He will Google the word “pizza” and look through the first five pages of results. He will meticulously draw a pizza in his notes.

As his high subsides, so his concentration returns. Picking back up his book, he reads with a submissive expression. You can empathize; Descartes is difficult enough to understand sober, perhaps his choice of stimulant gives him a unique perspective into the text. Perhaps he’s just crafting really elaborate Matrix analogies in his head.

When he finally packs up his things and heads out, you find yourself missing him. Yeah, he’s a little bit like Air Bud—you’re not really sure if you’ll ever understand the premise of his performance, but seeing it was both enduring and inspirational.