>>> Text-Heavy
By staff writer E.E. Southerby
February 29, 2004
“Not Affiliated with the Knights of Anything”
Now Playing: “This Love” by Maroon 5
A lot of people, or more precisely zero people, have asked me how I come up with a new column topic week after week. Well, the answer to this, like the answer to most of life's questions, begins by watching a lot of reality television. After about four hours my brain has drained itself of any useful thoughts, and also I've forgotten how to write in cursive. Once I enter this state of mind, that I call the “laugh zone,” some genuinely unfunny ideas usually come to my head. I then flesh out these various thoughts into a much longer, drawn out unfunny humor column, for your reading enjoyment/community service. Here's what happened:
-College students will brag about things that other people just take for granted. Like I heard this one guy say “I've gone to all my classes this week.” And another one said “Yeah? Well I've finished my essay on time. AND I've done all the assigned reading.” What the hell is wrong with you? You're supposed to! You're not special! I only brag about really unique accomplishments, like that time I beat Zelda without dying. You know, important stuff.
-I personally get a lot of enjoyment from hearing people complain that a professor is boring. Are you expecting her to just get up on the table and perform an Irish Jig? She's lecturing on the subject of Byzantine Architecture. You couldn't make that shit interesting if you got in the Magic School Bus and traveled back to Byzantine times. (“Ok, class. Today we're going to take a field trip back to the year 2300 BC.” “Boo! Do an Irish Jig!”)
-A lot of people, including myself, don't like the fact that all the buildings on campus are named after people. But you have to consider the alternatives. I'd rather learn at the Stevenson building than the ‘Hostess/Fritos Presents the AOL-Time-Warner Educational Compound' building any day. (Well, except maybe Wild Wednesdays, when the Doritos in the vending machine are half price.)
-One of my favorite things in the world is watching someone go into a conniption fit because he or she just found out that a required textbook costs $100. I'm always like “dude, you just spent $18 on a pitcher of watered-down beer.” Then I usually have to leave the room, because this person is obviously drunk, which brings up the question of why we were shopping for textbooks right after getting hammered in the first place.
-Quote of the Moment: It's a known fact that college students are always tired (maybe it's from all that late-night drunken textbook shopping). Since everyone is chronically fatigued, you wouldn't think that complaining about it would garner any sympathy. Like when I told one of my classmates how I was sleepy, and she said: “Really? I always thought you were more like Grumpy or Dopey.” I hate it when other people are funnier than I am. At least I know she's not Bashful.
-What's up with people whining about how the classes they have to take have nothing to do with their chosen profession? A guy I know was complaining that even though he was an English major, he had to take a math class in order to graduate, and this was going to be totally inapplicable in his future career. If every class you had to take in order to become an English major was directly correlated to future careers, you'd see people waitlisted for “Introduction to Making Fries” and “Advanced Cleanup in Aisle 7”. They'd never be able to find aisle 7, though, because they won't have taken math.
-If people hate their roommates so much, and they're tired of having their food stolen and not getting any sleep because someone was having loud sex all night, then why don't they just live by themselves? The answer, which I learned by listening to duets by Christina Aguilera and Ricky Martin, is that nobody wants to be lonely. Make up your mind already! You don't want to be lonely? Your food's going to get stolen and you're going to be subjected to loud sex. You pay for the companionship with your soul.
-If I hear one more person bitch about their 8:30am classes I swear I'm gonna lose it. You picked that timeslot, and you knew what you were getting into. And don't try telling me that it was a required class and that was the only time it was offered, either. We both know that's not true. Just skip class like a normal person and copy the notes off someone named Mildred.
-In that vein, I'm also getting mighty tired (although I'm always tired, ha ha!) of students whining that they never make it to their Friday classes because they were so drunk on Thursday night. When the hell did the weekend get shifted a day backwards? Some people get genuinely offended about having classes on Fridays, like they were going to spend the day in church or something. If you're too stupid to be able to figure out a solution to this problem maybe you should just drop out of school and go back to working at Dairy Queen. (Wow, that girl was right. I AM Grumpy.)
-And, finally, in this jaded post-ironic world where people can get away with writing ‘humor' columns complaining about other people's complaints, I think it's a little heartening to see that there's still a little touch of innocence left in the hearts of college freshmen. Those losers will believe anything! Like, one of them asked me how you do ‘body shots', so I told him you had to drink a shot of alcohol out of the cavity of a corpse they dug up. I bet he's off doing body shots right now, and impressing the hell out of all the ladies. Maybe one of these ladies will be impressed enough to post his bail.