Freshman Misunderstands Penn’s “Online Shopping Period”, Buys World’s Largest Gummy Bear from Vat19.com

In an extremely unfortunate misunderstanding, freshman Talia Hirschell (C ’24) spent the first two weeks of the “online shopping” period attending none of her classes, instead choosing to browse her favorite sites and buy what she calls “her best purchase yet.”   

The purchase in question? The World’s Largest Gummy Bear, from vat19.com, of course.   

“I’m so glad Penn gave us some time to just relax and get some stuff for the year that will prepare us,” as she took a bite from her green apple flavored gelatin snack. “I mean, if I hadn’t had the opportunity to delve deep into the internet, how else would I have found this 5 pound, 6,120 calorie gummy bear that’s 1400x larger than an actual gummy bear?”   

Talia has been “slicing the gummy bear every night and eating it like roast beef” and couldn’t be happier, noting she feels really badly for all the students not taking advantage of this online shopping period.   

“All my peers were so busy going to all these different Zoom classes, and it looked horrible. I’m really glad I got two weeks to just relax and shop online, since I definitely wasn’t ready to commit to classes. Although I’m not even sure if I’ll like the courses I enrolled in—if only I had time to try out a few different ones,” says Talia sadly.