Miss me yet? As I’m sure my most devout fans have noticed (@Mom and @Dad), I’ve taken a bit of a hiatus since the release of my last gift to campus recycling bins: seven Halloween costume suggestions to land you more than treats this year. I trust that your Mondays have become exceedingly duller since then, as I’m sure you deeply regret the lost opportunity to read some of my masterpieces in progress.
There was “Orange marries the new black,” a twisted fantasy about how I, a biracial Democrat, feign a relationship with President-elect Trump in a last-ditch effort to take back the White House. I’d even been toying with “Safety pins and stuffing,” a must-read guide for all social justice warriors out there who wish to protest the idea of Thanksgiving, but have their dry turkey leg and eat it too. You even missed out on “All I want for Christmas is you…to stop asking me what I’m doing after graduation.”
The truth is that I’ve been pretty busy, and not busy in the Duke “I’ve got five internships to apply for, four off-campus dinners, three meetings for organizations I’m semi-involved in, two papers due by the end of the week and a partridge in a pear tree” sense.
I mean the other kind of busy. You know, the kind of busy that happens behind closed doors. The type we only talk about in hushed tones. If you haven’t guessed it by now, I’m talking about the sort of busy that has you getting down and potentially dirty—depending on your general concern for hygiene.
I’ll be honest in saying that this wasn’t my first time. Let’s just say my sophomore year was pretty eventful too. While I had some idea of what to expect, I knew that this time would be different. That second time, I walked hesitantly into the stuffy entryway and waited for him to appear, call my name and lead me to his room, pretending all the while to text when the last message I got was a Chase Bank balance reminder. After what felt like half a century, he finally appeared.
Before I knew it, I was sitting anxiously on his couch, wondering how this time would be any different. Then it happened. He looked me straight in the eye and asked me the question I had been waiting for, “So what brings you to CAPS today?”
That’s right, you hormonal semi-adults, this isn’t “50 Shades of Duke Blue.” I’ve been busy all right, but get your minds out of the gutter, because my busy schedule involves battling the sort of anxiety than would make the obnoxiously responsive girl at the front of the lecture hall look like a stoned Drew Barrymore. After giving it my all with deep breathing and stress balls, I found myself back in the CAPS waiting room playing a rousing game of eye contact avoidance with everyone else who knows the Duke difference as the rapid decline in mental stability since stepping foot on this campus.
Since my first time, I’ve tried a number of different coping strategies. I done the whole starvation thing, but, as you might have presumed, that didn’t really work out all too well. I dabbled in excessive exercising but that too gets old, and who has time for all that laundry? I’ve dyed my hair blonde a time or two hoping to have more fun as the old adage suggests. I don’t know the difference between linear regression and linear algebra, but I’m pretty sure the correlation isn’t direct. My latest and greatest technique? I think my therapist would agree that satire has proven the safest and most sustainable option.
Before I reveal my identity to all of 10 undergraduates and perhaps an alum or two reading this, I’d like to thank all 11 to 12 of you for allowing me to use my column as a budget-friendly form of therapy this semester. In making fun of Duke culture, a strange phenomenon that has been responsible for both my utmost joy and deepest despair, I’ve learned to take life’s daily stressors with a grain of salt—often followed by a shot of tequila and a bit of lime. Every day is still a challenge, I’m still unemployed and my roots are still darker than the rest of my hair, but I firmly believe that laughter (in addition to a good SSRI) is the best medicine.
As we tumble headfirst into the most difficult week of the semester, I hope we can continue to just keep laughing. In the end, those grades won’t do much to reduce the stench and loneliness of our future retirement homes.
My name is McCall Wells, and it’s been a pleasure laughing at you.
McCall Wells is Monday Monday. Who will be next? Will it be you? Apply today on The Chronicle’s website.
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