sUggestions For activIties To Do On halloween If You don’t want To Get covid

By the Writers of the Pittiful News

1. Get dressed up and sit on your xl twin bed and call your mom and cry.  
2. Virtual trick or treating. Don’t ask how it works.
3. Drop out of college to scare your parents!
4. Come to the Cathedral lawn and take one (1) instagram photo with Pittiful News writer Sarah Yule so her parents will think she made friends at college this semester.  Wear a mask, vigorous use of the Facetune “reshape” tool before posting is required. 
5. Watch “Jonas Brothers: The Tale of the Haunted Firehouse” and make a Pinterest board dedicated to the JoBros’ TV dad.  If time is an issue, here’s the link to mine:  Link
6. Disinfecting candy you bought from target  
7. Sit.
8. Stay.
9. Good boy. 
10. Get violently drunk with the dude who sleeps next to the dunkin on forbes 
11. Use a ouija board to open up a portal to the demon world because maybe there’s no social distancing there. 
12. Participate in Panther central’s fun virtual halloween activities! (SIKE nobody does those)
13. Go on tinder. It’s scarier than any horror movie. 
14. Make your own “haunted” house: it is as easy as just putting up a few spider webs and using some glitter!
15. Make your own haunted house: kill someone!
16. Make a list of your favorite forms of frozen potatoes.  It’s like a gratitude list but it’ll make your loved ones ask if you’re alright.  And you’ve been hoping they would.  Happy Halloween!
17. Get all gussied up in your guise, take one selfie for your instagram, then take it off.
18. Recreate your favorite scene from your favorite horror movie! I like the part from The Shining with that old lady in the bathtub. I’ll be Jack Nicholson, who wants to be my better half?
19. Fall in love with a handsome small town stranger who works at the lodge you just inherited from a distant cousin.
20. Talk to a girl. Spine tingling!
21. Make a diy potion that’s actually just lean 
22. A jungle juice-esque concoction of melting together candy corn, Twizzlers, raisins, and Svedka.
23. Take shots until you are ok with hooking up with your roommates; I am looking at you Stella, we should play this just the 2 of us
24. Remind all of your friends to vote! If you don’t, there will be consequences.
25. Chow down on some edibles, but it’s actually just regular Nerds Rope. They have pretty much the same effect.
26. Listen to One Direction’s complete discography (It only takes 5 hours and some change) and think about how you will never be able to feel the feelings you felt when you heard those songs for the first time.  Also sob about Zayn leaving.  You and I both know you aren’t over it.  
27. The presence of death annihilates all that is imaginary. We are the offspring of death and death delivers us from the tantalizing, fraudulent attractions of life; it is death that beckons us from the depths of life. If at times we come to a halt, we do so to hear the call of death… Throughout our lives, the finger of death points at us.
28. Read a spooky book! Might I recommend Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking?
29. Redownload Wattpad. Or, more likely if you’re on our site reading this article, just open the app.  You never deleted it, and that’s okay! HarryxLouis fanfics are a timeless artform.  
30. Reminisce about the time when the world turned against Taylor Swift and chose team Kanye; terrifying!
31. gnjnuj;aevbfdmnlk vfv
32. Happy birthday to you happy birthday to you happy birthday dear satan, happy birthday to you.
33. Watch the office for the like a hundredth time this month
34. Go on Omegle; think of all of the unexpected penises as jumpscares in a haunted house!
35. Cower in the corner, for you feel so alone, and the truest fright of all is that you will die without anybody to grieve your passing.
36. If you want a really scary costume idea, dress up as your 7th grade self. 
37. Watch Glee! Nothing says horror quite like Matthew Morrision singing the thong song.  
38. Leave the cute boy in your calc class’ halloween party in tears because he got back together with his ex, who you just became friends with. This is exceptionally upsetting because she promised to help you get with him. Next, tearfully run to meet up with your two artsy outcasts friends who are watching a horror movie in their garage and accidentally scare them when you walk in. Tell them what happened and devise a plan to take down the head plastic of your high school. 
39. Sing pop country so all your friends will leave you
40. Eat last years halloween candy that you hid so that thief ROBIN URCANDY would not steal it

Suggestions for what to do if you want to get covid

1. Go to Brad’s makeout party and kiss Stacy, she is a medical miracle as she has gotten mono multiple times

How I’ll Be Spending My Shelter-in-Place

By Sarah Yule 

If you had the sense to mute your Outlook notifications this past Monday, you may have missed the news that we Pitt students are “strongly encouraged” to shelter in place about two weeks prior to going home for Thanksgiving. As can be said for many aspects of this Flex@Pitt dystopia, this recommendation can feel a tad yucky. Who wants to spend the last fourteen days of living under the rule of the benevolent and all-powerful Kenny BonBon and Pitt’s very own Galligator within the four walls of their teeny dwelling? We should be out and about, sowing our wild oats from one dirty South O basement to the next. But alas, we find ourselves here, and I have taken up the task of gifting you some advice on what you can do to make your shelter-in-place less depressing. 

1. For all my freshman, maybe you took the Freshman-15 as an obligatory sprint instead of a lightly suggested marathon. Maybe you, say, blew all of your dining dollars on pints of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream at Market to Go and have resorted to using your debit card these past weeks. Maybe, just maybe, the workers in said Market to Go know you and give you the same sad look when you check out with said Ben & Jerry’s ice cream pint on a near-daily basis. All of this is hypothetical, and I am totally not speaking from experience. So, now is the time to turn it around. Okay, I know, it is not possible nor healthy to embark on a total weight loss overhaul with mere days left in the semester. But, if you get off at the Gain Train’s next stop, you can ensure that this Thanksgiving of comments like “Wow, you really grew up!” is the last of its kind. 

2. Read that book that you told yourself you were going to read. It’s been sitting on your desk as a reminder of your failure to stick to anything and to leave it there would be letting that book win. What’s my shame book, you may ask? It’s a self-help read sent to me by my father following my first tearful phone call home in August when I couldn’t figure out how to get the dryer to start. While the book doesn’t directly deal with the function of laundry apparatuses, I’d assume it must have something useful to offer me. So, I will be delving into that sucker come November 12th. 

3. Call your friends from your hometown and prepare to make all of this shelter-in-placing for naught. You’ve been away from these people for months, so logically that extra week before Thanksgiving has to include a large gathering with half of your graduating class. Sure, it’ll put everyone around you in danger, but a life not lived on the edge is hardly worth living. 

4. Walk (six feet away from all human life forms) around campus and say a quick goodbye to all of your favorite spots. Much to my chagrin, I do have to advise you not to actually kiss the structures you’re bidding adieu to; I love a good building as much as the next guy, but these are unprecedented times, folks. I plan on washing my hands one last time in the definitely-haunted bathroom on the third floor of Cathy. I’ll get my last large iced coffee with almond milk and pumpkin swirl from the Forbes Ave Dunkin. Lastly, I will eat my last order of Sarah’s signature shame lo mein from Schenley Plaza’s Asia Tea House. That goodbye will undoubtedly be the most heartbreaking.

Once you’ve done all of these things, you’ll be perfectly ready to go back to your hometown. I wish you luck, and look forward to seeing you crying as I pass you on your very own farewell tour of Pitt’s campus over the coming weeks.

Everybody’s got something to hide except me and my frisbee!

By Eric Brinling

Let me confide in you, my loyal reading public: I’m scared. I’m really scared. I might even go so far as to say that I’m downright frightened. Maybe not quite terrified, but it’s getting there. I’m on the cusp of terrifism. It’s a horrifying state to be in.

    I went outside today – which alone is newsworthy – to find a brave new world. Everyone around me, from the garbage man to the construction worker to fancy lady Francine “la damme française” Laderoute and even Fanny and Lady, her dogs, were wearing masks. Even the sidewalk had a mask on it, suggesting that it too was in on the plot. I longed to return to the safety of my closet, but I put on a brave face. I had made a commitment to several strangers that I had met on the r/Pitt subreddit that I would meet them to toss around a frisbee, like normal college students are supposed to do. 

    To my horror, they too were wearing masks. How did they expect to catch any frisbees? With their hands? 

    They just stared at me judgingly. I glanced nervously between them. One of them, a tall boy with astonishingly short legs and a disproportionate torso to make up for it, and a very large, ugly head with eyes that seemed to be two different sizes and ears that seemed to be two different shapes, one like a boat and the other like a camera, and hair that seemed to have been styled in the form of an elliptic paraboloid – what was I saying? Anyway, this guy seemed to be the least judgmental and kindest of the group, so I tossed my frisbee at him.

    Surprisingly nimble for his little dachshund legs, he dodged away and said, “Dude, we’re not frizzing with you if you aren’t going to wear a mask.”

    What were they all hiding behind the masks? I guess I had been in that closet for a long time. Do people still have mouths? Are mouths taboo? Did some serial fruit-placer go around putting orange slices in mouths across Pittsburgh, creating a need to cover one’s mouth constantly in fear of the orange slice placer? Or maybe aliens have invaded, and they were able to replicate every part of the human body except for the mouth, and I’m the only real human left? But then why would they want me to wear a mask, shouldn’t they want to keep me marked as a true human for future brain autopsies or for a spare member on their Wednesday night human pop culture pub trivia team?

    Whatever it was they were hiding, I knew I had no similar need to wear a mask. I felt my mouth to make sure it wasn’t replaced with a garbage disposal or a plastic bag or a mirror or something and, finding my mouth wet and squishy as usual, picked up my frisbee and went home. I don’t think I’ll come out again for another few months, maybe masks will be out of fashion by then.

Things You Could Buy With the Money You’re Saving by Not Having a Wedding

By: Abby Stoudt

Great news LGBT community! In light of Justice Barret being appointed to the Supreme Court, I’m making a list of all the fun things we can buy instead of paying for a wedding. So, instead of dropping 30 grand on a wedding, you can now afford:

1. 2,727 frog shaped coin purses
2. An unlimited amount of Turning Point USA activism kits whose pins you can then repurpose with $30,000 worth of Posca markers (While we’re dropping $30,000 we might as well buy the good stuff)
3. 600 pairs of rainbow crocs
4. A brand new Subaru
5. 428 Seinfeld boxed sets
6. 131 Bokuto plushies (but the huge one because again, we’re treating ourselves, LGBT community <3)
7. 600 Iconic Milk Bar birthday cakes
8. Roughly 7,500 of my go-to Starbucks order: A grande iced coffee with sweet cream and 3 pumps of white mocha
9. 1,666 copies of the Trolls Soundtrack on vinyl and 428 record players to listen to it on
10. 1,578 tapestries that depict Robert Pattinson standing in his kitchen

Well, I hope this helps because you all know what they say: retail therapy is a valid form of therapy.

But on a more serious note everyone, we’re showing the jokes the door for a moment, I know that times feel really rough right now but we will make it through this together. I love you <3.

Horoscopes For the Week Of October 19th

By Ella Mizera

The autumn breeze has begun to set in, and in this period of transition it’s always helpful to keep an eye on the future.

Aries: You will reminisce on the futility of life this week, just as you have every other week this year. You can find an answer, but it will involve going to the Dunkin’ Donuts on Forbes and asking for Jim.

Taurus: Try using conditioner before shampoo. This isn’t a metaphor, I just want to know what happens if you do that.

Gemini: Your scrapbooking hobby will take a turn for the gruesome, so make sure to freshen the air before your roommate comes back and asks you why the room smells like blood.

Cancer: That window doesn’t lead outside. I don’t know where it goes, but it isn’t where you think it goes based on Euclidean geometry. Maybe that’s where they keep the frozen corpses of our previous deans?

Virgo: Have a friend over for dinner. Also, the meaning of life is written on page 42 of the closest textbook. I know, it’s weird.

Libra: Bernie Sanders will appear to you in dreams, asking for a sacrifice. What he asks of you is entirely dependent on your relationship with your mother.

Scorpio: What if my dog is just an ambulating mass of bees wearing a dog suit for Halloween? What if yours is too?

Sagittarius: The next few days will be hard. Substantially harder, as if they were somehow more solid than the last. Enjoy your liquid days while they last, for the freezer of God is merciless.

Capricorn: It’s time that we started going back to geocentrism, and you are the perfect leader for this intellectual uprising. Show NASA what’s up.

Aquarius: Throw a dart at the map. Wherever the dart lands, an unwitting animal will gain the ability to speak. It will revere you as a god, but you will never meet it. At least, I hope not.

Pisces: Eating a sticker seemed like a good idea at the time, I know, but what you didn’t foresee is that the adhesive would bind to the roof of your mouth. Please let me know if you’re okay.

Ophiuchus: You’ll fall in love.

A sneak peak at the Non Alcoholic Mix Off later this month

By the writers of the Pittiful News

• Clowns 
  • Clowns have a rich history in the Pittsburgh area, they go back many generations as seen in the balloon family trees they make after asexually reproducing. 
  • Drink: “Honk my Horn if you know what i mean”
    • Fruit punch, Vegan Bailey’s Irish almond milk creamer, 1 lollipop (on top, similar to a cherry)
• Witchtok
  • The Witchtok community represents a broad spectrum of witches of all kinds, by sharing videos of witch tips, potions, weird peace offerings they leave in the garden for the nymphs, and reading each other’s tarot fortunes to give sad witches some encouragement
  • Drink: “The Bubble, Bubble, Toil, and Trouble”
    •  A blend of herbal teas with hints of chamomile and rose, some of the stuff from my garden that I didn’t actually plant it just kinda grew, and edible glitter, all stewed in a cauldron (pot) while we chant in Parseltongue
•  Arbor Day Enthusiasts
  • Anyone can be an Arbor Day Enthusiast, but not just anyone can be an Arbor Day Enthusiast, if you catch my drift. The community is often split into two factions: those who enjoy celebrating Arbor Day with a barbecue and a game of cornhole and those who are active participants in yearly Arbor Day revolutions worldwide in which they overthrow authoritarian regimes and replace them with a government run by trees. These two factions do not get along (even (especially) on Arbor Day).
  • Drink: “Committing Treeson”
    • Maple syrup, sawdust, blanched ginkgo leaves, some wood chips if you’re feeling frisky
•  Anti-Maskers
  • The fuckheads, i mean anti-maskers, are a group of people who believe that masks are dummy dumb dumb and they shouldnt be worn because they dont work and kill brain cells. We collectively have two brain cells and are not about to risk losing the rest. Plus, if Trump survived COVID, then we can, too.
  • Drink: “Bleach”
    • Bleach jello shots from coronavirus shaped molds 
• Children of the Corn
  • They shuck all day and shuck all night. They shuck when they’re happy and they shuck when they’re sad. They shuck like animals. They love corn and they just don’t care who knows it. Is that what the movie’s about? I think it is.
  • Drink: “Maybe I’m A-Maize-d”
    • Corn right off the cob, corn that’s been off the cob for a day or two, high fructose corn syrup, cornmeal, cornflour, a few corny jokes, a unicorn, General Cornwallis, candy corn, corn ethanol, etc.
• Oakland 
  • A community of students and faculty alike, centering their time around the livelihood of the city. The Oakland community consists mostly of Pitt students and other universities’ students who come to the Pitt campus to study. We pride ourselves on our dedication to leaving garbage in the streets whenever possible, which includes but is not limited to: five guys fries we dropped for the birds, cigarette butts, any bag, empty dab carts, and Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond.
  • Drink: “The Oakland Token”
    •  Five Guys fries we dropped for the birds, cigarette butts, any bag, empty dab carts, and Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond
•  Nursing Students That Used To Bully Me In High School
  • The popular kids in school who bullied or outright ignored me are now training to be in charge of people’s survival. They would’ve failed high school chemistry if not for the participation grade, and now they wonder why they’re failing OChem. Hallmarks include messy buns, Lululemon pants, hydroflasks, and the inability to empathize with people outside of their suburban clique! I trust them with my life! 
  • Drink: “The Nursing Dose”
    • Starbucks Double Shot, mixed with 10 ccs of blood; stat, and the tears of children. Mix for 10 seconds in your mom’s food processor. Add protein bar chunks, stickers that say “it’s a beautiful day to save lives”, and seventeen episodes of Grey’s Anatomy. Complain about early clinicals. Be stuck in one profession for the rest of your life. 
•  Monkey “Enthusiasts”
  • The people that are REALLY into monkeys *wink*
  • Drink:”The Monkey’s Crotch” 
    • 16 Fleas, 2 oz of Coconut Cream, 3 oz Pineapple Juice, A Whole Lot of Disapproval From One’s Parents, a Splash of Water, .75 oz of Fresh Lime Juice, 3 dashes of a Cease and Desist from the Local Zoo, and a pinch of salty tears that God didn’t make you a monkey
    • Instructions: In a blender, combine all the ingredients until smooth. Then pour into a glass before you cry yourself to sleep after realizing you’ve been on permanent house arrest after THAT incident you pulled with monkeys from the local zoo…. Rumor says that those monkeys never looked at people the same way.  
• Pitt Administration
  • They have long lived in the sewers under oakland and have developed their own culture, they often ask other residents to come play with them in the sewers and then eat the students and blame it on Covid-19
  • Drink: “Honey I Murdered the Kids”
    • Oh the places you’ll go (Dr. Seuss book), any photograph you have from college, gatorade(red to represent the blood spilt in the sewers)
• The pigeons that live in my house
  • These Pigeons will not leave
  • Drink: “Just Rat Poison”
    • Rat poison with a hint of lime, Rat poison restaurant style, rat poison scoops, salt and vinegar rat poison; you can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. There’s uh, rat poison-kabobs, rat poison creole, rat poison gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried rat poison. There’s pineapple rat poison, lemon rat poison, coconut rat poison, pepper rat poison, rat poison soup, rat poison stew, rat poison salad, rat poison and potatoes, rat poison burger, rat poison sandwich, sour cream and onion rat poison 
•  Gym Bros
  • The giga-chads you see strutting around the inside of the Baierl Student Recreation Center like they own the place. Which, I mean, they do. If they ask me if I’m using something you best believe I’m saying “nope, my bad.” This drink represents everything about the weightlifting community, including but not limited to: shitty cutoffs made from free Pitt t-shirts, skipping leg day, a supply-chain major, and spending Saturdays with the boys.
  • Drink: “Get Swole or Die Trying”
    • 70g whey protein powder (chocolate flavor), 14 lq oz human sweat, a dash of methamphetamine, peanut butter, 1.2 gal blue powerade run through a Brita filter. All contained in a BlenderBottle, obviously.
•  Squirrel Hill
  • Many people in Squirrel Hill are Jewish, some are not, but one thing everyone from Squirrel Hill loves is Manischewitz wine, but since we cant have that due to alcohol content, we will have Kedem’s grape juice
  • Drink: “do I really need to put a name in this box, I literally said it was just Kedem’s grape juice, oh, it is copying down whatever i say, alexa stop, siri off, google home leave me alone, beam me up scotty, if i hit the enter key maybe it will stop”
    • Kedem’s grape juice, like just that in a glass, it tastes great

Real and fake facts about Alcohol safety mixed together like a quality cocktail (shaken not stirred, what is this the 1800’s no cocktails are stirred nowadays) 

1. It is unsafe to drink and drive
2. Putting little umbrellas in your fruity drinks makes them taste better
3. Making jokes about consent is funny
4. Pong is a game played at many ceo events
5. all white house staff must carry narcan, it does not help with alcohol, it is just good for all the “diet” coke (just cocaine) the president does (do not use narcan if someone is overdosing from cocaine, it will send them into cardiac arrest, narcan is safe for use on those overdosing on opioids)
6. If you drink more, you’ll be happy
7. It is unsafe to drink and drive
8. I’m a fruity drink ;)
9. One sip of beer will steal your virginity, your childhood memories, and your youthful essence
10. Certain types of liquor make jazz sound better

I stole my neighbor’s lawn ornaments

By Tyler Sikov

               I have once again gotten myself into a pickle, not literally this time. My neighbors wanted to test out their new security system, so they asked me to steal some of their lawn ornaments. I was on board immediately and began planning my expert heist. I arrive at their house (like a minute after I leave my house, you know neighbors and all) and I set my sights on my targets, the ornaments.

               There is an assortment of ornaments. There is a peacock where the tail and body spin independently of each other. There is one that is topped with an orb, that I am certain is just a wizard staff half buried in the ground. There is a very rusted sun flower. The last one is a stained-glass picture of 2 butterflies on a stick.

               I look for defenses and more importantly flaws in the defenses. I do not notice anything stopping me from stealing the ornaments. So, I walk up and pick the orb and peacock up. I walk back to my house and hide them in my garage. I go back and get the other 2 ornaments and hide them in my garage. As with all crimes I commit, I desire recognition so I go back to the scene of the crime and contemplate stealing their potted plants but decide against it.

               A few hours later my neighbors asked where their lawn ornaments went. I informed them that I stole them as they had requested to which they replied that they had not yet installed their new security system and had been at a funeral while I was stealing their ornaments. They asked me to return them but I said no because I put some effort into planning my heist. I was planning on doing a number of flips and rolls through the laser field I pictured. I brought multiple bandanas which I planned to use as weapons. Most importantly I had a getaway driver which I never used, now I have to apologize to my mom for not using her help in yet another criminal act. I will keep you, my readers, up to date on my escapades in nefarious activities.

10 Hot Pics of Roc to Make Your Day

By Savannah Teman

10 Hot Pics of Roc to Make Your Day

Roc is coming to steal yo girl

Roc coming home after a long day of holding the weight of every Pitt students’ depression on his shoulders

Who else has a cool statue of themselves? Abe Lincoln? Roc has us all beat.

I always thought Roc looked good in pink

Who says we can only have one Roc?

Roc in the desert, his natural habitat

He always impresses me with his skills

What’s on Sutherland’s Mysterious 9th Floor?

By Isaac Przybysz

During my freshman year, I was wandering the halls of my native Sutherland and found something odd in the stairwell: a locked door at the end of a set of stairs going up from floor 8. “But how?” I thought. “The building only has 8 floors, that we know of.” So I decided to sneak find an alternative entrance up to the floor and here’s what I found:

• State secrets
• Science experiments
• A parking lot
• A swimming pool
• The genetic code for clones of more pre-med students from outside Philly
• Patrick Gallagher’s heating lamp
• An elevator to hell
• The end of the song “American Pie”
• A secret stash of Natty Light
• A Mario pipe, probably also to hell
• All the Starship robots
• Your grandparents’ tapes from when Pitt football was good
• The ‘butthole cut’ of Cats
• The Port Authority bus that fell in a sinkhole last year
• The Plague Inc controller for COVID
• Yoshi’s tax returns
• All the unmatched socks lost in the dryers
• A rabbit hole to Wonderland
• The Chevron steps
• Sodexo
• The O (RIP) 

The fruits of your labor

By Eric Brinling

You wake up. It was all a dream. The coronavirus, the Trump presidency, the imminent environmental apocalypse, all of it. You sit up and rub your eyes, which are grapes. Your fingers are plump little bananas. It’s another fruity spring day of your freshfruit year at the University of Cherry Pitsburgh. 

    You check the clementime on your phoneydew. It’s late. You jump out of bedfruit and go to brush your teeth (which are snowberries) with jelly, or whatever the toothpaste equivalent is in your fruit-themed world. You’re meeting up with your old fruit school friend Jackfruit for the first clementime this semester, and you don’t want to be late. Finally, someone to wine to about how depressed (as in a wine press) and lonely you feel. 

    You head to the lawn below the Cathedral of Pearning and wait on a bench plum for your friend. To your annoyance, you have to wait for several persimminutes before Jackfruit arrives. Finally, you see him walking past the Thomas E. Star-Fruit statue. 

    “Hey Jackfruit, how’s it hanging?” you ask politely in the customary way that fruits greet each other.

    “Grape!” he says, more enthusiastically than you had hoped. You had expected him to have a similar calabur of general meloncholy to yours. His fruity play on the word ‘great’ took you by surprise, and not in a good way.

    “Why’s that?” you ask, your voice close to betraying your cavendisinterest.

    “I went on a date!” says Jackfruit, his pearly snowberries showing a wide, banana-shaped smile.

    “With who?”

    “Do you remember Melonie?”

    Of course, you remember Melonie. In your despearate attempts to find friendly fruits last semester you went to some lemon’s party at Carnegie Melon. There you met Melonie, whom you introduced to Jackfruit. You thought you had a fine fruitship with her, but your cornuspondence* had grown berry slow of late. Now, you suppose, you know why.

    But you just say, “Yes.”

    “Well,” says Jackfruit, “we’ve been hanging out (as fruits do) for a while now and I think we make a really good pear.”

    “Good to pear,” you say after a short pawpause.

    “What?”

    “Pear, you know, like hear. Maybe it’s better when read in text than when spoken aloud,” you hope that to be the case, but you also know it might have just been a bad joke. But it was easy. Low hanging fruit, so to speak. 

    “Ah okay. Well, I have to prune off, I’m afraid. Melonie will be raisin hell if I don’t get to lunch to watch her eat her fruit salad.”

    “No, yeah, that’s fine. I have to call my cran-ma and grand-papaya anyways,” you lie, having no intention to call your elderberries. 

    You watch the mango. You know in the peach pit of your stomach that this is the last clementime you’ll see him for a long while. You wish you would have said, “Orange you glad I introduced you two?” or “Please hang out with me more, Jackfruit, I’m cripplingly lonely,” but your wit was not quick enough. 

    You sigh and reflect on it all. You started the day with two friends, or so you thought, and ended with zero. Maybe you should’ve never introduced Melonie and Jackfruit. Maybe you should’ve just tried harder. You really did give it your best, but it seems that others have harvested the fruits of your labor. And what are you left with when it’s all said and done? Kumsquat!

*Important note: this is not, in fact a pun on the word ‘corn’ but rather a pun on the word ‘cornus’, a genus of fruit-bearing trees. Corn is not a fruit, so that wouldn’t work. Now that I’ve explained the joke, it’s hilarious, right?