We had three options: jump out the window, escape through the ductwork, or... .
Knock, knock, "We know you're in there, come hang out."
Our friends were in the hall trying to convince us to enjoy the night, but we had not yet started the week's column and decided to lock ourselves in our room until we finished. After an hour or so of ignoring their knocks, our only hope that our friends would not hate us was to convince them that we were not in the room or at least had a very good reason for refusing to answer the door. The options included convincing our friends that we were each hooking up... and that the girls had left through the window; convincing our friends that we were asleep... and deaf; or just waiting until no one was around and making a dash for the door.
In the end we were stuck in our room for at least an hour after finishing the column before the doors on the hall were closed and we were able to sprint to the stairwell undetected. We walked up the stairs, out the door, down the other stairs and called our friends from the call box so they would witness us actually entering the dorm, as if we had suddenly both decided to lose our DukeCards. And so, UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE remained anonymous for one more week.
We hope the folks in Maxwell finally understand why we often locked our door on weekends and told them we were napping... a lot. One evening as we worked on a column, Chris tried to evade a visitor by telling him over IM that Nick was napping. However, instead of leaving us alone he replied by asking if he could come nap on our couch since his roommate was being loud. So, instead of writing a column we had to turn off all the lights and Nick had to pretend to sleep for 20 minutes while Chris pretended to do homework in the dark. Awkward.
So, who are Nick Graf and Chris Morgan? Well, Jen Wlach pretty much had us nailed in her last column. Except we're not sophomores, we're seniors. And we're not independents, we're in Maxwell House. And we're not bitter about living in Edens... we live in the WEL and have the biggest double on West Campus (really). And, despite our columns, we have very little against fraternities. We're actually pretty annoyed with Nan and L-Mo for running them off campus. It just turns out that they make great material for a humor column... so do the "Back Duke or Back Off" guys.
While some may take jabs at Monday, Monday for our "anonymous slams" and lack of an identifying headshot, we'd like to remind them that really that's the whole point of the column. It actually was a bit frustrating not being able to receive any direct feedback about our columns. We did our best to keep an eye on people before, after and during our classes as they read the paper, trying our hardest to gauge their reactions to the column. Chris really enjoyed listening to his friends debate the identities of UNCLE EBENEZER and DJ RIDDLE in class every Monday morning. A special shout-out goes to Sheila who twice accused Chris of being one of the authors before finally ruling him out because "it's not Chris' type of humor."
So, this is the part where we thank people, because we've heard that that's what you do in your last column. First off, thanks to our editor, Andrew Card, for gradually pushing our deadline back as the semester wore on, and for only cutting our favorite joke in a column once. Ask us about that one... it was pretty funny. We would also like to thank our friends, and especially the Maxwell crew for buying into our ridiculous excuses and putting up with our random disappearances throughout the semester. Of course we'd like to thank our parents. Nick's mom eagerly read the column online every Monday morning, only becoming truly concerned after the column about L-Mo's hurricane party. She was comforted, however, after Nick assured her that they couldn't withhold our diplomas just because we wrote about Nan chugging a 40. Um, they can't do that, right? Chris would like to thank his parents as well, even though they did not really know anything about the column, Tom for helping to get the ball rolling, Chris for repeatedly knocking on the door right after we locked it and pointing it out every time, and Nastyman and Wonder Boy for planting the seed long ago. We'd also like to send a huge shout-out to Wojo for being cool with us using him in almost every column.
Nick Graf and Chris Morgan are Pratt seniors. They are glad that they will now be able to tell jokes to other people without the other one glaring at them for giving away potential column material.
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