Dear Dookie,
It’s spring now and I’m suddenly realizing that this “graduating” thing is actually happening. These have been the best four years of my life, and I don’t know what I’m going to do living in the real world. Is there any help you can give me?
—Gloomy Graduate
Dear Sad Sack Senior,
I guess spring really has arrived. If blinding white-boy thighs peeking out of dock shorts and tree jizz all over everything didn’t give it away, the newly self-absorbed senior class was certainly going to remind me eventually. I hold this worry near and dear to my heart because, alas, the Dookie is graduating as well. Yes, after that Mayday I will take my skills as Duke’s best advice-ifier to where every Duke student with vaguely marketable talents goes: consulting.
If we’re thinking of life in rank-orders, as we almost-Ivy Leaguers are wont to do, these will certainly be our most fulfilling years. Obviously, now that we’re leaving the best time of our lives, there’s not much to look forward to in the future. With a world full of taxes, careers, marriage and children ahead of us, some may wonder if life is even worth living past college. Yet never fear, for the Dookie is here. I’ve thought of the perfect way to avoid post-Duke depression. The answer? Reject the status quo, and refuse entrance into the real world altogether. We make the real world into Duke. Logistically, this might be difficult, but I’ve got a few steps that I think will get the job done.
1) Go greek.
After an entire college career, I don’t know what life would be like without frats. Frats (well, GOOD frats) are basically the Plastics of Duke—they’re made up of campus’s rich, dumb and slutty. We’re all jealous of them, but we can’t hate them because they’re popular. Associate with them, and suddenly everyone will know your name, every rumor ever said about you and your entire sexual history. Without these pinnacles of campus having complete rule over our social lives, whom would we turn to for parties or social validation? The answer is to give all people the chance to join a fraternity (given a good chill to pull ratio, of course). The only challenging step will be to find a group of rich, white men who want to preside over an entire society. If given the opportunity, I believe that this demographic of John Boehners, Carrot Tops and Larry Monetas will inspire world peace and, more importantly, end the global shortage of good craft beers.
2) Kill the conservatives.
Over the past four years, we have been blessed with a bubble. Nothing with the word “equality” stamped on it could ever be challenged, despite logical or even ethical shortcomings. But outside of colleges, people actually LISTEN to conservatives, and (gasp) some even LIKE what they say. How can we have constant, heady discussions about the unrelatable conundrums of the innards of liberalism if NOT EVERYONE IS LIBERAL?! To avoid answering this question, we must kill all conservatives. On campus, we have succeeded in intimidating them into silence, but their mere presence reminds us of their tainted morals. As guns are out (gross), we need to get inventive. I’d suggest poisoning Maker’s Mark or trying to make red the new pink. No Republicans will remain. Should this method prove effective, we start with Texas and move our way around the South and the Midwest, effectively eliminating all the unimportant people in the country.
3) Promote polygamy.
Over the years, we’ve grown to know and love something we call the “hookup culture.” When we leave Duke behind, we enter a world where you are expected to get to know someone before you hide your salami in them. To avoid this unnecessary and monotonous endeavor, we should take the next logical step beyond promoting gay marriage: promoting polygamy. Its legalization will create a beautiful, harmonious world community much like the one that already exists at Duke. We will share everything—resources, lovers and herpes simplex. That’s it, I’m converting to Mormonism.
4) Freak out.
At Duke, we’ve become accustomed to the media caring about the injustices in our lives. When we can no longer rely on Jezebel to solve our problems for us, how will we react if someone tells us that Asians are intelligent or black people have different hair than white people or that Hispanics love jokes about airplane food? Without a news outlet to report it to, we will have to resort to the next most mature gesture: temper tantrums. It’s a time-vetted strategy. Why, when Susan B. Anthony fought for women’s suffrage, she didn’t rely on eloquent speeches or critical argument. She just started crying, and all the men in the room were so uncomfortable that they granted women the vote right then and there.
Well, there you have it. As we graduates leave Duke, we have the opportunity to create the world that we want for ourselves. Why not make it exactly like the one we just graduated from? And if you’re still deciding whether you want to leave Duke culture behind, I’d encourage you to think back and reflect. Just remember how much you loved and praised Duke’s intellectual climate, hookup culture and social scene over the years, and accept that those were the best years of your life. After this, there is absolutely nothing better to look forward to.
The Dookie credits all advice to Vitamin C, who taught me all about the implications of graduation and the importance of avoiding scurvy. See y’all on the flip side, muthaf-----s. Dookz out.
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