It’s very rare to have a freshman as a WesCeleb, but it’s also very rare to meet someone who is 6’8“ and named Lightning, so what are you gonna do? It took awhile to get past the topic of names and height, but after that I learned about how to deal with nudity, 14-year-old triplets and the proper way to enter MoCon when you’re almost 7 feet off the ground.
KATEY RICH: How did you feel when you were told that you were going to be a WesCeleb?
LIGHTNING JAY: I’m a raging narcissist, so I was pretty happy. Some people were unhappy with me being a WesCeleb because they think it will inflate my perception of myself. It’s gotten to the point where I enter MoCon with both fists raised expecting people to applaud. Some people do applaud.
KR: Do people ever chant your name?
LJ: One girl has started standing on her chair and shouting ”There’s Lightning, everyone look at Lightning.“
KR: How tall are you by the way?
LJ: 6’8”
KR: How’d you get that way?
LJ: A lot of milk, a lot of vegetables, a lot of human growth hormones.
KR: How did your parents feel when you came to tower above them?
LJ: Actually the milkman’s about 7 feet so my dad is pretty upset.
KR: Do you get this question a lot?
LJ: I’ve become very skilled at speaking about how tall [I am] and about the story of my name.
KR: So how about the story of your name?
LJ: The story goes that I appeared to my father in a dream and said the following quote, “Hello, my name is Lightning.” And from that epiphany my father saw in his flashing moment of truth that my mother was pregnant, that the child that my mother was pregnant with was a boy-child, and the boy-child with which my mother was pregnant was meant to be named Lightning.
KR: Isn’t that kind of how it worked with Jesus??
LJ: I like to think of myself as a prophet, as a harbinger of truth and joy. Other people don’t seem to get the same vibe.
KR: What else have you been up to in your brief Wesleyan career?
LJ: A lot of napping, a lot of naked. I’m playing basketball now, which is exhausting. I was on the Nietzsch Factor for a while. I was on the Writer’s Block. And spitting, a lot of spitting. Rampant flirtation.
KR: Do you use your name as a pickup line?
LJ: That’s pretty much all I’ve got going for me. and I’m really tall. I mean, have you seen how big my shoe is? I’m seriously tall.
KR: Do you have trouble with Wesleyan beds or doorframes or anything?
LJ: I’ve come to accept that all doorframes are shorter than me. the average doorframe is about 6’7“
KR: Wow.
LJ: See, short people don’t know these things! My ceiling collapsed in my room. At first I thought it was my fault, but I was asleep in bed. But it’s nice, because now my ceiling is a little bit taller.
KR: What does your roommate think about all of this?
LJ: He’s taken to sleeping outside of the room recently. There’s not really enough room for two egos.
[After some more conversation, the topic of age comes up]
KR: Are you 17?
LJ: Well for the moment. I’m working on not being 17. Give me a couple weeks.
KR: What are you going to do for it?
LJ: I was going to turn 18. I figured that would be exhausting, so that’s pretty much all I had planned. I was hoping someone else would take initiative and plan something for me.
KR: Did your parents come this weekend??
LJ: They did, it was lovely. I have triplet younger siblings, they were born on Halloween. One of my brothers managed to lock the other brother in a Port-a-Potty on Foss Hill as people laughed at him.
KR: How did he do that?
LJ: I wasn’t paying attention at the time. I decided it was probably better to laugh with them than do anything about it.
KR: 14-year-old triplet siblings? Did you beat up on them when you were kids?
LJ: I laid down the law with an iron fist. I like to think of myself as a judicious tyrant.
KR: So is there anything else you want to add? I mean, this is your chance to pick up girls.
LJ: That’s true. And guys. And people with gender-neutral pronouns. I could pick up small animals. There was this whole flock of eighth graders for some reason in MoCon today. There was one table with an empty chair so I sat with them for a while. They called me ”Sir“. One kid came up to me and said ”Excuse me sir, could you stand next to her?“ This girl was literally at my waist, and a bunch of them laughed at her. She was upset, and I wasn’t.
KR: What else?
LJ: I’m deathly afraid of face-to-face contact. It’s really upsetting to me. If I’m face-to-face with a guy I find it very intimidating. If I’m face-to-face with a girl I find it very erotic. If a guy is face-to-face with me it means he’s knocked me down. If a girl is face-to-face with me it means something interesting might happen.
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