Illustration by Arnie Bermudez

Being hit by eggs, going to a UA football game and being splashed by a speeding car after a rainfall when walking down the sidewalk. What do all of these actions have in common? If you answered they are all embarrassing, then you can award yourself 25 brownie points.

Thanks to the lack of an adequate drainage system around the Tucson area, pedestrians and bicyclists are left unprotected against malicious drivers who love to drive their cars through a flood of water and embarrass their fellow colleagues. Come on, Wildcats are supposed to stick together!

I love water and I love driving, but under no circumstances should they be combined to form the extreme sport of "Pedestrian Spraying."

Moe Naqvi Columnist

I place part of the blame on the drivers, especially the uncoordinated women drivers, but I also place part of the blame on the City of Tucson for not having a working drainage system. (I was seriously kidding about the women part. Please, no more hate mail.)

The raining of water is a sporadic and inconstant element in the dry city of Tucson, but nonetheless it happens. And when the rain does come, it pours faster than a bartender serving Gary Coleman on a lonely, lonely night. Although it does not rain all the time, it rains enough to cause me heartache. The rivers along the sidewalk are ominous playgrounds for juvenile delinquents with cars while I am left to pose as a pleasure target for someone's sick mind. How many people must be splashed before action is taken? There is nothing more embarrassing and self-degrading than walking along the sidewalk, eating a bear claw, and being splashed by cootie-infested water. Granted, it is funny, but it is so wrong. It is like dressing up as a robber on Halloween and stealing bags of candy from little kids before they have to go home. Funny, but definitely not cool.

The only circumstances that I can think of where it would be OK to splash a pedestrian is when the individual is wearing an Arizona State jersey or if they are blatantly drunk. There is nothing funnier than an unstable drunk. Oh wait, yes there is: a wet, angry unstable drunk. Other than these two instances, anything else is not fair game.

I for one am sick of the flowing rapids down the streets. I cannot walk down the sidewalks anymore without having the fear of being splashed with water on my white T-shirt. I have sensitive skin and the slightest bit of contaminated water brings me to my knees. I wonder if I can sue the city for "potential emotional epidermal damage." The city of Tucson has a new bear on its back and his name is Moe Naqvi. I will not stop until I get some holes drilled around here, a hefty settlement and a large cheese pizza.

How hard is it to drill a couple holes here and there so that water can go down into a place that is away from the University of Arizona? Mexico is not that far from here; I am sure they would appreciate water that is cleaner than the kind they have now.

I am pretty solid on the fact that the City of Tucson has a couple of dollars lying around in the bank. Actually, they have a total of $696 million approved to use for the operating budget this year. The cost of drilling open drains is roughly a little less than $696 million.

Seven percent of the Tucson population attends the University of Arizona. Although it is not a huge portion, that seven percent is pretty much the most important part of the population in Tucson. Without us, the city of Tucson is essentially a retirement home. We should at least be awarded with some kind of drainage system around the campus area to make our lives a little easier. Let's make it happen, Mayor Bob Walkup, otherwise my mom is going to give you a call.

Moe Naqvi is a physiological sciences freshman. He can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.