Drew Calamaro ’21
Satire Editor
Hohoho, Halloween is around the corner and I’m already sleep deprived! As someone who just stayed up all night for no reason while being highly unproductive, I am just going to slap together some things that scare me and get to my 800-word minimum this fine Monday morning so I can turn in my article to the Editor-in-Chief who I fear above all else[1] and, ultimately, go to sleep. So here are some things that scare me, and they should scare you too.[2]
Figure 1 a chilling berating doled out by our Editor-in-Chief. The article made it at 6:55 p.m..
The thought of speaking to an undergrad on Halloween this Thursday.
I know a lot of you are little K-JDs, but for anyone who has been out of undergrad for a year or more, or anyone who decided they wanted some real life experience (like by trying to take a day off to go to the dentist and the doctor on a Wednesday), the thought of having a conversation with an undergrad, let alone speak to one, gives me the chills. As someone who prides himself on his ability to converse, words escape me when I meet a 20-year-old. They live in a fantasyland, one where you aren’t in a direct zero-sum competition with everyone your age, and you can eat an entire Domino’s pizza along with a D.P. Dough calzone and not gain weight. I would single out the undergrads for having less substance than the pizza, but there are plenty of uninteresting people in this school to fit that bill as well. It really isn’t about them, but more about me,[1] and my aversion of revisiting my own past. Or it’s that we’re all too drunk to talk coherently at Biltmore at midnight.
The fact that we still act like “Gunners n Roses” isn’t a horrible band name.
I am not commenting on their ability as musicians, I am commenting on a pun I would use ironically to get people to groan in pain. I truly hope this band name is tongue-in-cheek, because the thought that I go to a school that thinks it is a “cool” name is too much to bear. In America, we place value on the vocal minority, and by God I will be the extremist voice on this topic. If it is still meant to be ironically bad, then bravo you got me, “Gunners.” But the proportion of people in law school who neither understand puns nor understand irony[2] if it hit them in the face causes me to worry greatly on this topic.
I feel nothing when I think about Thanksgiving.
I don’t feel much of anything these days. But Thanksgiving used to be my jam (literally—cranberry). Nowadays, I am too busy and my family is too far away for me to feel sentimental about it. Did you know that all pumpkin in pumpkin cans is actually made out of squash but the FDA allows manufacturers to list it as pumpkin anyways? As if Thanksgiving couldn’t be built off of any more lies. But ultimately, I don’t care, because I am too busy to care, and possibly too sleep deprived. Does this mean that in the future, when I have kids, that I’ll be an absent father who is too busy lawyering around to be there for the holidays? At the moment, I can only assume so. But at least I will have done it for them… surely they’ll realize it someday? I am spooked.
Most times I eat candy from the student affairs office, I am disappointed.
Except for Twix on a good day. And maybe Peanut M&Ms. If you’re not a fan of at least one of those two things, then you’re an untrustworthy person. Also Almond Joys. If you choose regular M&Ms over Peanut M&Ms you should fail the bar. Plain and simple. No lawyer worth their salt (or in this case, sugar! Ha ahhh!) is offering regular M&Ms to people or their loved ones that were diagnosed with mesothelioma. Always look for the offices with Peanut M&Ms—that’s how you know you’re at a high-quality establishment.
The Law School, despite being progressive on many things, has no parental leave policy.
Sure, you can take a leave of absence, and sure I don’t know how a parental leave policy would work in the real world at Law School, but I find this to be interesting. Also, like Thanksgiving, I don’t care since my hypothetical children are used to my absence. They should just be grateful for all I provide them, including my occasional presence.
Overall, I think that if you feel the same way as me, you should be scared about where your life is going. Essentially, you’re someone who hates young people and well-meaning cover bands, eats only 3 types of candy, doesn’t care for the holidays, and is doing this all without the safety net of a parental leave policy. The bright side is that you can dress up as Ebenezer Scrooge on Thursday and it’ll all make sense.
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dac6jk@virginia.edu
[1] Keep in mind this is what it has always been.
[2] Read: self-awareness.