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Excuse me, dude. Hey, whoa, wait up, I saw that eye contact.

What did you say? No, don’t worry. You won’t be late for class.

I’m raising awareness for a very important cause, so if you’ll just stand with me here on Wescoe for like two minutes, I’ll let you go.

This is National Awareness of Awareness Month, a nationwide effort to raise awareness of awareness. Are you aware of awareness?

Did you know lack of awareness is the No. 1 cause of not knowing shit? Here, take this pamphlet. We also have a Web site. It’s called the Internet. Please be aware of it.

Awareness of Awareness needs more awareness. It’s a troubling fact of human psychology that we can only be aware of so many things at any given time. One time a commercial raised my awareness of AIDS testing, and I forgot about the starving children in Africa for a week. Now I’m once again aware of the children in Africa, but I no longer remember whether I’m supposed to have some sort of moral stance on artichokes.

Here, take a T-shirt. That’s Louie the Awareness Lemur. See how his always aware, pie-plate eyes are both of the a’s in “Be Aware”? That symbolizes Awareness and not necessarily just of lemurs and their related causes. But do be aware of those, too.

But are you aware of breast cancer? OK, sure, but are you aware of lemur breast cancer? Here, take this rubber “lemurstrong” bracelet.

I see that you are currently aware of my arms. Yes, this is a lot of rubber bracelets, every cause from gay rights to preserving marriage. The only thing my arms aren’t aware of is rubber-induced anaphylactic shock. We have lapel pins for that.

But Raising Awareness is not just about rubber bracelets. Sending thousands of Facebook invites for groups, events and assorted profile bling is an excellent way to raise your friends’ awareness that your commitment to social justice is powerful enough to motivate you to move your index finger slightly.

But in National Awareness of Awareness Month, we need to keep in mind one thing.

Remember Justice for All, those abortion protesters with their giant pictures of mangled fetuses? Sure, they raised some awareness, but their pictures were too … bold. We are about Raising Awareness, not Changing Minds.

I know I looked up at those giant fetuses and almost felt my opinions changing. Were I about to give birth to a 20-foot tall fetus, I can’t say that I wouldn’t airlift the doctor in with an M-16 and a belt of hand grenades under “search and destroy” directives. It’s the birth canal, not the Panama Canal.

Oh, don’t you give me that look. You're offended. This is exactly my point — we shouldn’t believe in things because that only causes grief, dispute and anger. We should just be vaguely aware of them. Kind of a disinterested omniscience of all causes.

Raise awareness, not arguments. Remember the old saying “Opinions are like assholes. We all have them, and we should mind our own and stay out of other people’s.”

What was that? No, I’m pretty sure that’s the way the saying goes.

Before you go, would you like to sign a petition for some causes that are in need of awareness?

This one is for finally putting a hippo on the moon. “Hippoastronomus.”

Or would you like to sign one for increasing government funding to cure diseases that already have other cures? Our “End polio forever, once again” petition is still in need of some major awareness.

Thanks for your time. And remember, honk for hemp!

— — Reichert is an Oberlin graduate student in law.

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