At Duke, camping out for basketball tickets in Krzyzewskiville, the tent city outside Cameron Indoor Arena, is an annual pastime. At colleges across the country each year, outbreaks of meningitis are also annual pastimes. You can already see where we’re going with this, can’t you …

(They’re covered in germs! All of them!)

From North Carolina news station WRAL 5:

A Duke University freshman was diagnosed Tuesday with meningicoccal meningitis and was being treated at Duke University Hospital, officials said.

The unidentified female student had been camped out in Krzyzewskiville, the location near Cameron Indoor Stadium where students wait for basketball game tickets, to get tickets to Wednesday night’s game against the University of North Carolina.

Not only did the poor girl get meningitis, now she’ll miss the UNC game, too.

There’s no word about how the girl contracted meningitis, but there is a chance — albeit a particularly small one — that the isolated outbreak could turn into a miniature epidemic on the campus. Duke officials have reportedly already contacted the Center for Disease Control to cover the bases if things get worse.

Ten to 15 students are alreaedy being treated with antibiotics to avoid a full-blown affliction, but there are more important issues at stake than their safety: How is Duke going to establish ticket buying priority if  Krzyzewskiville is outlawed? Will the set up corrals of students a few hours before the tickets are released and then let them out at the same time? And wouldn’t that just create a 19th-century “Sooners” style scenario, unintentionally encouraging cheating?

Consider our curiosity piqued, to say the least.