Revelations 1:1: Finals suck

SIR ELTON can’t believe there’s only one week until finals. Coming off a rough family-angst-filled Thanksgiving replete with emotional outpouring and fraternal mudslinging, SIR ELTON isn’t feeling ready to study yet. Sure, SIR ELTON should have gotten over the debilitating stomach ache on Thanksgiving (from lack of eating).

Easing away from that subject like a fruit from a vegetable convention (or vice versa?), SIR ELTON is wondering where the whole semester went. He thought he had at least another few months to bring up his grades. It was bad enough when he had an A and three Ds at midterm, and after reading it his dad responded, “You have AIDS?” Naturally, that caused him much alarm (riiiiiiiing!), adding “You stay away from my boyfriend, you hear? I mean, that gentle man down the street.” So the library is out of the question, because pure silence only reminds him of the supreme awkwardness that comes when…. SIR ELTON is going to have to study amid a raucous tumult, either during a game in Cameron Indoor or during one of the Chapel’s new gospel raves (where the X stands for Christ). Now don’t get the impression that SIR ELTON is homophobic, it’s just a bit much to find out that his two heroes, Alexander the Great and his dad, are gay in the same day.

Not to make it sound like SIR ELTON didn’t have a wonderful break, because he did. It’s the same story every Thanksgiving: the family sitting around on the couch watching the Cowboys, a drunken uncle yelling that he could throw better than Drew Henson if he was transformed into a Muppet. Of course such claims must be backed up, so the whole family went out to the backyard to toss the ole pigskin around. The whole family except SIR ELTON’s grandpa went outside, that is. Let’s just say it was hot when the girl from “Desperate Housewives” did it to Terrell Owens, but SIR ELTON never wants to see grandma like that again.

SIR ELTON loves these little opportunities to return home and looks forward to them for months. Because SIR ELTON gets to see old high school friends, you ask? No, because SIR ELTON is completely incapable of scheduling any sort of hygienic appointment for himself, meaning that by the time break comes around SIR ELTON has hair in his eyes, plaque on his teeth, wax in his ears, unsightly tan lines and needs a bikini wax. Usually the first thing SIR ELTON’s mom does is give him a hug, kind of pat a few times and watch the spring action and remark on the weight gain. This year, though, SIR ELTON knew how to escape the ridicule, and hadn’t shaved in weeks before going home, so it looked like the weight was intentional in order to get that awesome mall Santa job.

Oh, SIR ELTON loves it when good old X-mas season comes around (sarcasm, with more coming), where he gets to enjoy hordes of hyper hellions (and their kids) at the mall stampeding all over his new kicks and invading his turf. This turf is, of course, the personal space consisting of four square feet in which he smokes menthol cigarettes and wears brand-name clothing to the delight of 11-year-old girls maxing out their parents’ credit cards at GapKids. Anyway, SIR ELTON doesn’t appreciate the pressure to get in the holiday (spending lots of money) spirit since he has barely any money and actually still uses the barter system. (Four pencils for a digital camera? Any takers?)

As much as SIR ELTON is looking forward to studying for finals, he is not eager for his active, almost certainly excessive social life to slow down as the whole campus enters Cut-your-losses-and-study-for-finals mode. He was appalled when he came to Duke to find that fraternity guys actually study for stuff, a sight that would be punishable by death in his native country’s university (State School… eeeeww). If they were cool by definition, they would forget finals and hold keggers 24/7 with UNC girls and birthday cake. Or “moderately cold.” Alternate definitions. Either way, SIR ELTON’s hoping his shipment of X comes in before his planned Gothic Reading Room rave. It’s going to be tight.

SIR ELTON probably shouldn’t publicize his activities since he got busted with crack at a football game already.