Writing a column every week is not as easy as it sounds. Sure, I make it look easy, but that's like saying Nancy Kerrigan makes getting hit in the back of her leg with a lead pipe look easy. And that's exactly my point. No, not what I just said. Rather, what I just did. I made a Nancy Kerrigan joke. That was more than 11 years ago. I might as well have brought up Monica Lewinsky or Manute Bol. Hey, remember when Jerry Falwell thought that Teletubby was gay? HA!
The point I am (poorly) trying to get at here is that it's hard to think of funny things to say every week, and often what you get, especially from me, is something useless and not truly that funny. Case in point: last week the first sentence of my column was just the name of a popular STD. I suppose that's funny. But how funny is it really? It's just a cheap laugh - I copped out. If you laughed at it, it was probably for either of the two following reasons.
The first: shock value. You, presumably a decent, well-kempt, STD-free individual, were sitting in class on a Thursday afternoon and your boring lecture forced you to open your copy of the Daily. What did you see directly below my stupid-looking face? GONORRHEA. And you snarfed your Orangina all over the sleeve of the dude that fell asleep in the seat next to yours.
You were not expecting gonorrhea (in fact, not many people do expect it) and you find its presence in your lecture hall incredibly hilarious. But it's not funny. In this case, gonorrhea served only as a comedic enhancer. It works as setup and punch-line, but out of context most people would not find it funny. The actual joke is the idea of starting off the column with something shocking. Gonorrhea does not create the funny, it just makes the funny funnier.
The second: you're as immature as I am. I ALWAYS find gonorrhea funny, especially when it's in all capital letters. In fact, I could be sitting on the examination table at my doctor's office and hear from the doctor that I have it, and I would absolutely burst out laughing (assuming I was not debilitated by the burning).
I just find it funny. It could be because it's a disease that wears many hats. Gonorrhea could walk past you in a club wearing low-rise jeans and a belly shirt. Gonorrhea could stand in the corner of the latest Busta Kappa party sipping on the Kool-aid punch and sucking a lollipop. It could even be READING THIS COLUMN RIGHT NOW. And that's funny. But most likely it's because gonorrhea changes the way your winky works. And yes, I am that immature.
Back to my point, though: gonorrhea, despite what I think, is not really that funny. And here's what I'm driving at: it means nothing. Nothing. What possible good do I create in this world by writing self-indulgent columns about my impending unemployment or advising a bunch of spoiled college kids on how to spend their spring break? Where's the thought-provoking satire? Where's the biting social commentary? Where's the beef? See, there I go again. Making a stupid joke.
I have an idea: maybe I'll reference an '80s television show right now! That'll appeal to your collective sense of nostalgia and aid me in endearing myself to you. Hey, let's talk about that "Full House" episode where Kimmy Gibbler pierced Stephanie's ear for her! Or even about how Judy the youngest daughter just disappeared after the fourth season of "Family Matters"!
Of course I'm being overly cynical, almost absurdly so. I enjoy writing about irrelevant, self-indulgent college things because I am an irrelevant, self-indulgent college student. You enjoy reading what I write because you are just like me, and don't pretend you aren't, because you hide it just as well as you stay sober on the weekends. College affords us positions as the irresponsible youth of society. For many of us, the only responsibility we have is to keep ourselves alive for four years before carrying on to the next level.
But I ask you, Tufts University, to take off your blinders. Pretend that you did not just put 200 dining dollars on your bursar's account so that you can have your six-dollar sandwich from the campus center. Pretend your trash was not taken out for you today and your bathrooms weren't cleaned. Pretend you did not go to breakfast at 2 p.m. last Sunday. And pretend that you did not charge all your textbooks this semester to your parents' credit card so that you could spend your own money on alcohol and marijuana.
It's easy to get caught up in college life, to waste four hours a day downloading blooper videos off of ebaumsworld, to laugh when you see GONORRHEA in print. Next time, though, I challenge you, do not laugh at GONORRHEA. Keep yourself from accepting my stupid references to '80s sitcoms as worth the minutes it takes you to read them.
In fact, just stop reading my stupid column. Read Paul Krugman. Read George Will. And if you appreciate ignorance and hatred, read Ann Coulter. They make you think. Just don't read Saj Pothiawala; it's just not worth it. Have a happy St. Patrick's Day.
