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Teachers and Students

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By Charles Schnell, Self-Proclaimed King of Mediocrity, Controversy, and Unavailability

 

Is it better to be the teacher or the student? Neither, if you still do not have a significant other.

When all is said and done, there is not much of a difference between teachers and students. We are all human, and that means on our best days, we are all imperfect. (Albeit, some more than others.)

Teachers and students are more similar than the teachers would like to admit. For one thing, we all fall in love. Teachers fall in love with Lincoln, the Ti-84, the government, and the College Board. And students, well, we fall in love with each other–for better or worse.

Additionally, we all have favorite foods. I am sure all my teachers are craving an In-N-Out burger as much as I am. The difference here is students have the metabolism to handle the burger, the shakes, and the fries that find themselves tossed around in the bag.

Sure, metabolism is great, but being a student certainly is not free of its own disadvantages; teachers have a “leg-up” on us in many things. They cannot be grounded by their parents, only the law; they get to correct the homework instead of doing it; they can drink. As a lover of freedoms like these, I would rather be a teacher than a student. However, if you were to ask teachers, I’m sure they’d rather be students again.

To sum it up, teachers and students have one key similarity trumping all other similarities: our humanity. We are all human, so maybe we can reach an understanding and compromise. Teachers, if you stop giving us homework, we will stop giving you homework to grade. Imagine how many outings to Applebee’s we could make.

 

Editor: Luke Langlois

Review of “The Good Place” — Becoming a “Good” Person

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By Dayton Kennard

The Good Place is an ongoing NBC/Netflix show that’s currently in its third season, with each new episode being uploaded to Netflix a few hours after its original airing on NBC. The series starts off with Eleanor Shellstrop waking up in “The Good Place,” a heaven-like town where only the kindest of the kindest people go when they die. She’s introduced to the town, shown her new home (which has been made and styled to perfectly match her personality), and matched with her soulmate, Chidi. In this perfect place, the only problem is her. Eleanor quickly figures out that she’s been mistaken for someone else, as the memories shown to her are not her own and there’s no way that she was as good a person as anyone around her.

This sets up the main theme of the show: becoming a good person. As Eleanor doesn’t belong in “The Good Place” due to her actions when she was alive, she sets out to become a good person and fit in with the rest of her neighbors. Each episode will have a specific problem that needs to be faced, and there will be flashbacks that allow us to see the difference of how she handled a similar problem in the past compared to how she’s handling it now. We get insight into how she’s evolving emotionally as she feels guilt over bad decisions and actions rather than just passing it off as someone else’s problem. Without spoiling much, I can say that these flashbacks are often amusing and absurd, providing a good break between the serious situation and the attempts to fix the current problem. Even though this seems like just a comedy at first glance, the show does teach its viewers better morals, whether it’s little acts of kindness or learning when to take one for the team.

I don’t want to spoil anything about the show, but I can tell you that they pack tons of action and plot into the 22-minute episodes, and the plot twists at the end of each season leave you shaking in your seat anticipating what will happen next. I recommend taking a day of relaxing on the couch with your blanket and snacks to binge the first two seasons in around 10 hours if you’re watching on Netflix with no ads. I hope you have fun watching it, and remember, you’re constantly being watched and judged for your every action to determine if you’ll spend your afterlife eternally suffering! 😀

Editor: Makena Behnke

Death is Sexy

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A One-Act by Charles Schnell, former Blog Staffer, now freelancer who aspires to write and publish the book A Hundred Ways to Ruin a Date and Two Hundred Ways to Fix It.

(SAM, a teenage boy, is in his bedroom lying on his bed, preoccupied with his phone. He’s wearing a yarmulke. There’s not much to his room: a bed, a dresser, a desk with a chair, a TV, and a video game console. Then, DEATH—a sexy, flirtatious young lady in her 20s—crawls through the window in nothing but her black undergarments, which have skull designs plastered all over. She’s also boasting a skull-plastered small black backpack. She tumbles onto SAM’s carpeted floor.)

SAM. Holy smoke! What’re you doing?

DEATH. (brushing herself off) Hello, Sam.

SAM. Who are you? Jennifer Aniston?

DEATH. No, I’m Death.

SAM. Is that your supermodel name or….?

DEATH. My real name. Listen, can I sit down? Climbing up here really took a lot out of me. (sits next to him on his bed)

SAM. (looking with eyes full of amazement) Okay, well, what do you want, Death?

DEATH. Do you have any Sprite? I could really use a refreshment.

SAM. Only Sierra Mist.

DEATH. Damn mortals.

SAM. What’re you doing here? You wouldn’t have come all this way just for a Sprite, Death. My parents would kill me if they found a girl like you in my room.

DEATH. (surveying him) Or they would pinch themselves out of disbelief. I’ve come to take you to the afterlife.

SAM. Okay….

DEATH. Your time has come.

SAM. Okay….

DEATH. Now all I need you to do is kiss me.

SAM. (does a double take, acknowledges audience) Okay! (leans in toward her)

(He shuts his eyes and goes in for the kiss. DEATH smiles devilishly and leans in. Just as their lips are about to touch, DEATH burps. Loudly. DEATH jumps up, flustered and embarrassed.)

DEATH. Oh, I’m so embarrassed! I thought I had finished digesting all the others!

SAM. Others?

DEATH. My apologies.

SAM. You mean you…

(Death and Sam speak simultaneously.) DEATH. Would’ve sent your soul to the afterlife and eaten your body?          SAM. Go to other guys houses and kiss them?

DEATH. Yes.          SAM. What!?

DEATH. That is the idea. How else are people supposed to go when it’s their time?

SAM. What do you mean?

DEATH. I’ve already told you, silly. I’m Death!

SAM. So when you said my time was up….

DEATH. Yep!

SAM. Wait, hold on! I don’t want to go yet.

DEATH. Oh, oh, what am I supposed to say here!? Sorry, forgive me it’s my first day on the job. Hold on, let me look at the handbook.

(DEATH pulls out the “BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO TAKING SOULS” out of her small black backpack.)

SAM. Job? Handbook?

DEATH. Ah, yes. Here we go. Ahem…. “We sincerely apologize that you don’t want to go yet. But unfortunately, your time has come. In life, we all must undergo things we do not want to. Nor are those things often ever under our control. For example, one time a man booked a ticket on American Airlines and got stuck next to a corporate lawyer for the entire flight.”

SAM. How’s that supposed to make me feel better?

DEATH. “The irony of this story is that after the flight, the guy wanted his time to come. Sometimes it can be a blessing!”

SAM. Look, I have no idea who you are or what crazy organization you belong to or how much red meat you’ve consumed recently. All I know is that you are very hot and I really want to kiss you. But, you ain’t worth going to the afterlife for!

DEATH. C’mon, kiss me!

SAM. No! If I kiss you, my soul will be sent to the afterlife, right?

DEATH. Yep!

SAM. What if I don’t kiss you?

DEATH. Then I’ll just have to take you normally.

SAM. Normally?

DEATH. Like all the other Deaths.

SAM. So you don’t have to kiss me? Then why do you? Not that I’m complaining.

DEATH. Oh, don’t get so fret up. They assign me to people who haven’t had their first kiss yet. That’s my position. I kiss them out of pity.

SAM. Hey, I’ve had my first kiss!

DEATH. Oh, don’t try to lie to me. In the afterlife, we know all. Besides, your cousin doesn’t count.

(SAM opens his mouth, but can’t think of anything to say to defend himself. He turns to hide his shame, notices his game console, and gets an idea.)

DEATH. Well, are you ready? I’m on a tight schedule. Kiss me already!

SAM. Wait! How about we make a deal? Let’s play a game of Madden. If you win, you get to take me. You don’t even need to kiss me! But if I win, you don’t take my soul and let me keep living.

DEATH. What’s in it for me?

SAM. What? You scared you’re going to lose?

DEATH. Scared!? I’m Death! I’ll have you know that at the office, we all play Madden on our time off! You’re on!

(SAM turns on the console, the TV. SAM sits on the bed while DEATH sits in the desk chair as they face the TV. They start playing.)

SAM: So what’s it like in the after life?

DEATH. Way better than here.

SAM. Really?

DEATH. Yeah! We’ve got Madden, cupcakes, blankets, quality plumbing, almost no bugs, quite profitable crop yields, a true democracy (as opposed to the American system), Dunkin’ Donuts. Plus the stock market is soaring right now.

SAM. Wow, it seems as if the afterlife has no downsides.

DEATH. Well, I wouldn’t say that. You’ve gotta die, and that’s a one-way trip. And, as much as reality sucks, it’s really the only place you can take a nice, hot shower.

SAM. Well, you can’t have everything.

DEATH. And the worst part—we’ve still got serial killers, rapists, and insurance salesmen.

(They focus on the game for a beat.)

DEATH. Ha! Interception!

SAM. I’m still up by 7…. So, how long have you been doing this death gig?

DEATH. About three days.

SAM. A newbie?

DEATH. Yep!

SAM. How many people have you kissed so far?

DEATH. 240.

SAM. Were you human before this or….?

DEATH. Nope. I was created three days ago.

SAM. By who?

DEATH. Death! My brothers and sisters and I are all extensions of Death.

SAM. Do you have any allergies?

DEATH. Nuts. Death is VERY allergic to nuts.

SAM. Really? Nuts are the weakness, huh? Nuts: the key to immortality.

DEATH. Oops. I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. Ah!

SAM. And another touchdown for me! Halftime show!

(SAM gets up and dances. He pulls out his phone and blasts “Get Down Tonight” by KC and the Sunshine Band.)

DEATH. What are you doing?

SAM. I’m winning. I’m cheating Death. This calls for a celebration!

DEATH. Not so fast. Look, half time’s over. Here comes my comeback!

SAM. You’re down by 21….

DEATH. Zip it.

(Sam stops the music and returns to the game, and thus the conversation.)

SAM. So, Death, I guess you know everything about the universe, right?

DEATH. Yes.

SAM. Can I ask you some questions that plague my existentialist mind?

DEATH. Sure.

SAM. Are there any restaurants in the afterlife? If so, how late are they open and what are their Yelp scores?

DEATH. Well, to put things simply, have you ever tried the KFC breakfast specials on a Tuesday morning?

SAM. Yeah.

DEATH. Afterlife food is worse.

SAM. Well, that’s great. At least I can finally lose some weight.

DEATH. Better late than never.

SAM. You know, a bunch of people think that the creation story is a myth, but is evolution really real?

DEATH. This is still quite a heated debate in the afterlife. However, let me put it this way: Evolution is the idea that we’re evolving, or, in other words, getting better as a species, and looking at you, clearly that’s not the case.

SAM. We sure are getting better at Madden though.

DEATH. Yeah, yeah…. You say as I tie up the game!

SAM. Marvelous.  

DEATH. One minute left!

SAM. (attains a serious tone, while still focusing on the game) Hey, Death….

DEATH. (still focused on the game) What!?

SAM. (glances at her, but his priorities are still clearly the game) You’re… really sexy.

DEATH. I know.

SAM. I think… I want to take you up on that kiss.

DEATH. (drops attention to game) You know what’ll happen right?

SAM. (glances at her more, but still pressing buttons occasionally) Yeah, and after hearing about how great the afterlife is, how could I not kiss you?

DEATH. Come here, Sam. Kiss me as if your death depends on it.

(He inches his lips closer and closer to hers. Just as the lips are about to touch….)

SAM. And touchdown! (he celebrates) I ran out the clock and scored at the last second, look!

DEATH. You mischievous midget, I’m gonna kill you!

SAM. Nuh-uh. A deal’s a deal. I’ve won my life! I never lose!

DEATH. (giving him one last glance over) Clearly.

SAM. Buh-bye Death!

DEATH. I don’t get paid enough for this. My brothers and sisters are never gonna let this up! Agh! Farewell, kid. I’ve got other prepubescent boys who need their dreams fulfilled.

SAM. Are you referring to the kissing or dying?

DEATH. Exactly.

(She runs and dives through the window and crashes through the glass, forgetting she closed it earlier)

DEATH. (from outside and below) Ow! My pelvis!

MOTHER. (offstage) Sam! What was that?

FATHER. (offstage) I told you to stop throwing the controller when you lose, damn it!

(BLACKOUT)

Editor: Luke Langlois

A Misportrayed Krab

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By new-to-the-2018-19-birdonfire staff, Blogger Luke Langlois

 

What’s the first word you think of when presented with our favorite animated restaurant owner, Mr. Krabs? It could be something like red, shiny, or even pointy-nosed. Unfortunately, the most prominent description of Mr. Krabs is “cheap.” How often do people use the word “cheap” in a good light? If you’re in need of a bag of Doritos, and a friend won’t lend a dollar, you’d call that friend cheap. If someone gets genuinely excited by a penny on the floor, they’re cheap. If your employer sells your soul for sixty-two cents, they’re cheap. By all accounts, Eugene Krabs has shown himself to be the stereotypical cheapskate. Society would like you to think that being the dictionary definition of a cheapskate is NOT a good thing. Though, is Mr. Krabs truly a cheap crab at heart? Or, is he an overly generous employer? After a brief look at some numbers, the answer is pretty clear.

Let’s take a look at the typical fast-food employee of the United States and compare it to Mr. Krab’s employees. In the United States, someone in the fast food industry is paid about $18,000 a year. In most large cities, the median rent per month for an average apartment would be at least $1,000. Without covering taxes, or any other basic need, that would amount to $12,000 a year, a majority of the salary of an average employee. Clearly, the average fast food employee does not make even close to enough to live in a safe apartment in the city while covering any other basic needs or amenities. How miserable! Who could ever work in the fast-food industry and live a fulfilled life? Spongebob and Squidward could.

Now, we can take a look at Spongebob and Squidward, Mr. Krabs’s two most loyal employees of nearly twenty years. Both of these fast-food employees are clearly able to provide for themselves. They have sizable and safe households. Besides being the owners of safe and decently sized domiciles, Spongebob and Squidward live in the outskirts of a prime city under the ocean.  As far as us viewers know, there are no other major cities in existence in the Spongebob universe. Adding on to this, the most desirable homes in cities are usually the suburban ones, such as Spongebob’s pineapple or Squidward’s Easter Island Head. To sum it up, these employees live in safe and spacious homes in the prime of this aquatic metropolis. Not only that, but Spongebob and Squidward have been known to have more than just basic needs. Spongebob is well known for his expert caretaking as well as jellyfishing. Like Spongebob, Squidward is able to pursue his passions. He paints, plays the clarinet, and even takes dance lessons. These are all expensive pursuits, especially in a capitalist society! In comparison to our above-water society, Squidward and Spongebob are paid exceptionally well for their seemingly mundane jobs in the fast-food industry.

Does the point not drive itself home? Mr. Krabs, mistakenly portrayed as a cheap and horrible crab to work for, is in fact one of the most generous people you could EVER work for. If you hear anyone call Mr. Krabs cheap, sit them down and make sure their minds are forever changed.

 

DISCLAIMER: While Mr. Krabs pays generously and allows his two employees to live a good life, he has made a few mistakes. Luke does not personally support the following: thievery, counterfeiting, 24/7 labor, selling the souls of employees, assault of employees, jellyfish slavery, grave robbery, attempted murder, or charging people for breathing.

 

Editor: Bella Bier

A Performance on Puns . . . . A Play on Words

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Compiled by Shelby Armor and Bella Bier

It’s the last week of school before February Break. If you’re dragging–not that you’re counting the days,–here are some puns to brighten your day. Puns make us giggle. Just ask Holden.

  • Yesterday I accidentally swallowed some food coloring. The doctor says I’m okay, but I feel like I’ve dyed a little inside.
  • I wasn’t originally going to get a brain transplant, but then I changed my mind.
  • Why don’t some couples go to the gym? Because some relationships don’t work out.
  • A friend of mine tried to annoy me with bird puns, but I soon realized that toucan play at that game.
  • I’d tell you a chemistry joke, but I know I wouldn’t get a reaction.
  • Did you hear about the guy who got hit in the head with a can of soda? He was lucky it was just a soft drink.
  • When notes get in treble, bass-ically they get put behind bars. The alto-nate punishment is to push them off a clef and hope they land flat on sharp objects.
  • I once got into so much debt that I couldn’t even afford my electricity bills, they were the darkest times of my life.
  • Show me a piano falling down a mineshaft and I’ll show you A-flat minor.
  • When William joined the army he disliked the phrase “fire at will.”
  • Claustrophobic people are more productive thinking outside the box.
  • Why don’t programmers like nature? It has too many bugs.
  • Atheists don’t solve exponential equations because they don’t believe in higher powers.
  • Police were called to a daycare where a three-year-old was resisting a rest.
  • A small boy swallowed some coins and was taken to a hospital. When his grandmother telephoned to ask how he was, a nurse said, “No change yet.”
  • My friend’s bakery burned down last night. Now his business is toast.
  • I got a job working in a hayfield. After one day I bailed.
  • Have you ever tried to eat a clock? It’s very time consuming!
  • What does a clock do when it’s hungry? It goes back four seconds.
  • Two windmills stood in a field. One asked the the other, “What type of music do you listen to?” The other replied with “I’m a big metal fan.”
  • What do you call a dinosaur with an extensive vocabulary? A thesaurus.
  • A girl said she knew me from the Vegetarian club, but I had never met herbivore.
  • Broken pencils are pointless.
  • Did you hear about the cartoonist who died alone in his apartment? Details are sketchy.
  • I tried to catch some fog, but I mist.
  • There were two ships. One was painted red; the other was painted purple. They collided. At last report, survivors were marooned.
  • Did you hear about the cross-eyed teacher who lost her job? She couldn’t control her pupils.
  • Jokes about German sausage are the wurst.
  • I’m reading a book about anti-gravity. I just can’t put it down.
  • I used to be a banker, but I lost interest.
  • I used to work in a blanket factory, but it folded.
  • I got a job at a bakery because I kneaded dough.
  • Bakers trade recipes on a knead-to-dough basis.
  • What do you give a sick horse? Cough stirrup and neighsel spray.
  • I stayed up all night wondering where the sun went. Then it dawned on me.
  • Atheism is a non-prophet organization.
  • What did the mummy do for the talent show? She wrapped.
  • What do you get when you cross a snowman and a vampire? Frostbite.
  • Without geometry, life is pointless.
  • Someone just stole my Thesaurus! I’m at a loss for words.–Brennan

Do you have a pun to share? Reply in the “Comment” section.

Ex: From Peter, “We’re getting so many suggestions for headlines, kinda like a ‘title wave.'”

Editor: Brennan Nick

*Punoftheday.com referenced.

A Guide to Gift Giving

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By Peter Kadel

ATTENTION! ATTENTION! The holiday season is here, and if you’re not a crazy person living in the desert then winter is in full swing, which means it’s the time to celebrate the things that really matter like religious holidays, the appropriation of religious holidays, commercialization of religious holidays, and arguments over coffee cups that support religious holidays. But, it’s important to remember not to use any religion-specific greetings because winter isn’t about religion. Winter is about buying stuff for people and telling them weeks in advance (as in “Oh, I bought you a Christmas gift”) to guilt them into getting you something. Winter is about just letting yourself go into hibernation, emerging only to have awkward encounters with your extended family. Winter is about forgetting all of your healthy life choices and subsequently collapsing into a pit of guilt, cookie crumbs, and despair–once swimsuit season hits. However, the most important part of the winter holiday is gift giving, or more accurately, gift receiving. But as the old adage goes, “Nothing in life is free.” So, you’ll have to give gifts so people feel obligated to give you gifts. Luckily, there are several holidays in the coming days for you to use as an excuse to give gifts.

Hanukkah is the longest and is relatively well known, but it ended yesterday, so there isn’t any time to get your gift and then receive a gift from the recipient, and so your best bet is to just convert to Christianity and participate in Christmas because most of us don’t know when Kwanzaa is (unless you read Harlow Berny’s post last week) or what it’s about. After your baptism, it’s time to go buy gifts for your unsuspecting “friends.” In this process, it is important to remember that the purpose of giving these gifts is to encourage your “friends” to give you gifts, so you need to find a balance between cheap and meaningful. Some examples of cheap and meaningful gifts are decorative shot glasses, stickers from other countries, fancy paper, and potatoes–because everyone loves potatoes. If you want to improve your chances of getting a good gift instead of a potato, –because who wants a lousy potato?–you should make sure the gifts have some kind of personal connection to the intended recipients. For example, if your “friend” likes the color red, give them a jar of blood, and if you want to make the gift really personal, make sure it’s their blood-type! If none of these examples are effective in guilting your “friends” into giving you stuff this holiday season, then you should recognize that you are in a “friendship” founded on manipulation and deceit, and you should end the “friendship” immediately.

 

Editor: AJ Patencio

Thanksgiving Special: Curious Customs

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By Renée  

 

As Thanksgiving came and went along with Black Friday’s mindless shopping sprees and the eating of unhealthy portions, I mulled over the peculiarities of U.S. traditions. I was born in Mexico. And, in my foreigner’s curiosity, I decided to research other curious customs of the U.S. Here is my top 10 list of curious U.S. customs (along with my very helpful commentary). Enjoy.

 

Curious Customs from America

 

  1. The Pumpkin Chuckin’ Festival in Delaware. It is exactly what it sounds like…
  2. The National Hollerin’ Contest in North Carolina. Why?
  3. Tailgating Football Games. I’m not exactly sure why you would really want to wait outside a stadium during a game. You can’t see it.
  4. Pumpkin Pie Martinis. Why does all non-pumpkin pumpkin flavored stuff exist?
  5. Roadkill Cook-Off, West Virginia. Okay, kinda interesting, but I am conflicted.
  6. Cherry Pit Spitting, Michigan. Eww. No, nope. No.
  7. Black Friday Shopping Sprees. Groups of people running over other groups of people for stuff, *chuckle* no.
  8. Pardoning the Thanksgiving Turkey. Like a ceremony for telling a turkey that you’re not going to eat it.
  9. Choosing the Imperial System–It’s just dumb and inefficient and impractical, especially now that there is the far superior Metric System.
  10. Thanksgiving. It’s strange. Seriously. Cranberry in cans, turkey slaughter, Black Friday pseudo holiday, questionable origin story. Nope.

 

Editor: Brennan Nick

One time at Summer Camp . . .

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By Charles Schnell, Survivor of the Fire Ants

Funny camp story. So, I walked into the dorm room after eating dinner. Two of my four roommates were in there. We’ll call them Andy and Jerry. So, we were in there for about an hour, just us three, until Andy said that he was going to take a shower. When he opens his suitcase, he noticed some ants crawling around. Bewildered, he lifted up his suitcase and his nearby laundry bag to discover a dead moth covered and surrounded by maybe fifty ants. They were everywhere: the carpet, the wall, the bottom of the legs of the bunk bed, the moth.

He shouted a word I can’t post on this blog and started hitting the ants with his laundry bag. Little did he know that the ants had already invaded the laundry bag. They started flying out with all of his flinging. Andy was screaming, “Get out! Get out! AHHHHH!” and, by this point, Jerry was up flailing his arms everywhere. Then, Jerry’s all like, “Hold on! Let me go get a vacuum!”

After Andy savagely whipped around his laundry bag (full of smelly clothes and fire ants), Jerry came back to save the day with a vacuum. He plugged it in on the other side of the room and turned it on. But, here’s the thing–he didn’t use the vacuum like a normal person; rather he started slapping it against the floor repeatedly. Yeah, that’ll show those ants….

The thing is, it actually did.

Jerry was lowering their numbers; however, they never died out completely. And, after about maybe five minutes of them screaming like it’s the end of days, Andy and Jerry eventually found the source of the ants: a little, puny hole in the wall. So, they came up with a grand plan to stop the ants.

“I’ll go get some bug spray!” Jerry yelled as he ran out to the hallway, vacuum still running. Andy decided it was his turn to slam the vacuum on the carpet (and against the walls where the ants were crawling). During the time Andy and I were the only ones in the room, there was a moment where I looked out the open door into the hall to see Jerry being chased by boys a foot taller than him with cans of bug spray.

“Here’s your bug spray, Jerry!”

“AHHHHH!”

I was thankful to find out that Jerry survived, but he came back empty handed. But, it was fine because as soon as he did come back, Andy put down the vacuum he’d been smashing against the wall and whipped a cylinder out of his bag: “Look, Jerry, I had some ALL ALONG!”

Andy started spraying practically everything in the room with bug spray, while the room’s portable fan carried the spray further. Jerry ran out again and came back with some thick, heavy-duty scotch tape and sealed up the bug-spray-drenched hole. Then, in overkill enthusiasm, Andy started spraying the scotch tape. “You never know, man. You never know,” he said shaking his head.

So, the tape and all the bedsheets were drenched in bug spray. I didn’t want to sleep in bug spray; the can said it was poisonous, but Andy and Jerry complained about a much more serious problem: the smell. The room reeked of bug spray. Then, Jerry got another brilliant idea. He went over to one of our other roommate’s bags (we’ll call him Dave) and pulled out his big can of Febreeze–which was only half full. To suppress the bug-spray stench, he sprayed it all over the room. The Febreeze didn’t really do anything other than add on to the stench, rather than suppressing it.

So, let’s take a look at the room in its new form: a carpet now clean of ants; a wall with a bunch of dents in it; wet, bug-spray-stained pieces of scotch tape; a vacuum that no one bothered to turn off for the whole dilemma; bedsheets laced with bug spray and Febreeze; and two idiots bragging how they saved the day.

So, here are the morals of the story: I’m horrible for not helping in the slightest and I’m sorry (although it did make for a good story); don’t use a vacuum like a moron would; and a job that could take one person ten to fifteen minutes to fix took two teenage boys almost an hour.

 

Editor: Brennan Nick

If Horror-Film Characters Were Rational

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By Brennan Nick

 

“Hey, Joe! Do you want to go check out that abandoned lighthouse?”

“No, Stan. If you go there you’re just asking to break your leg.”

“Come on, we don’t have to climb to the top, just check out the place.”

“Alright, I’ll get the flashlights”

“We don’t need flashlights, Joe.”

“Yes, we do. It’s already dusk. By the time we get there it’ll be dark.”

“You know what? Scratch the lighthouse idea, let’s go exploring around the closed factory out of town.”

“We still need flashlights.”

“Fine, we’ll bring flashlights”

“Okay, great, but I wasn’t aware that flashlights make you invulnerable from twisted, broken ankles.”

“You’re no fun today, Joe…”

“Look, it’s getting late; I’m gonna go home down the main road that is very well lit and with many people on it.”

“Wow, Mr. Super-Safety Joe going down the well-lit road, where’s your sense of adventure?!”

“Fine then! We can go to the lighthouse tomorrow afternoon.”

“No, you ruined the lighthouse for me and the factory, too. We’ll go to the haunted house on the hill.”

“Ghosts aren’t real…”

“Then we’ll go to the totally normal, but creepy and vacated house on the hill tomorrow NIGHT and then…”

“Woah, Woah, Woah, if we’re going to go tomorrow why would you specifically wait until night?”

“For the sense of adventure! Joe, you just have to see it for yourself to understand what I mean. If we did it during the day, we’d just be going through an old house.”

“We’d be much less likely to hurt ourselves…”

“You really are not any fun today.”

“…”

Editor: Claire Jenkins

Halloween Special: Stupid Superstitions

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By Blogger Renée

 

As some of you samhainophobics may know, it is almost the dreaded day of your fears, Halloween. And how else should we honor this glorious day but with a glorious top 13 list! So here we are now to dive into the world of superstitions.

  1. If a black butterfly or moth lands on you (sometimes more specifically on your left shoulder), you will die in less than a year.
  2. During the New Year, wear red underwear for good luck and put new shiny coins with the heads side up on the windowsill.
  3. Trimming nails at night will bring you bad luck or in some cultures premature death.  
  4. Complimenting a newborn baby will bring it bad luck; this is believed in several cultures.
  5. Never, ever, put shoes on a bed; this will bring death.
  6. Don’t sleep or go outside if it’s cold with wet hair; this will bring you a deathly pneumonia.
  7. To bring in good luck for the New Year, eat twelve grapes (one for each month) and make wishes on each of them; you must eat them in the first two minutes of the New Year.
  8. The numbers four, six, thirteen, fourteen, seventeen and six hundred sixty six are bad luck and can even signal death or the devil.
  9. Black cats bring bad luck. There are multiple superstitions about black cats being bad luck: if they lead you under a ladder, cross your path, put their back to you, look at you in the eyes, they will bring you terrible luck or death.
  10. Never wash a baby’s clothes at night. Bad spirits or the devil will come if you wash baby clothes or hang them out to dry at night.  
  11. Whistling indoors brings the devil and general bad luck. Or death.
  12. You should tuck your thumbs into your fists when passing a cemetery to protect your parents.
  13. Don’t post a blog post about superstitions on Friday the 13th or 13 terrible things may happen…*

*Originally prepared on Friday the 13th.

 

Editor: Claire Jenkins