Things I Wish I’d Known About College

By I.S. Mills

Some incoming freshmen feel adequately prepared for their first college experience just by relying on university orientations and the advice of friends and parents. But I would have loved to know some of the things I know now when I was a rising freshman. That’s why I’ve compiled a brief list of information to pass on to the freshmen of 2016.

1) Don’t Even Bother Packing Your Heels

You will wear your heels to class one time, and blisters you incur from this occasion will remind you to never walk to upper campus in anything but Sketchers with orthopedic insoles ever again.

2) Eels in the Soda Fountains

Picture this: you’re hankering for some SoBe™ Yumberry Pomegranate Lifewater™, but what comes out is solid and toothy. Don’t worry, everyone gets freaked out the first time they find a few juvenile morays at the bottom of their cup, but you’ll get used to it. (Just avoid the Mountain Dew- that comes with electric eels).

3) No Sunglasses

This one really surprised me. I had no idea that absolutely no sunglasses are allowed at college before I moved in. In fact, a security guard confiscated my Ray Bans before letting me into the bathrooms in Chevron on the first day of classes. Don’t make the same mistake I did!

4) The Centipedes

Boy howdy, are there a lot of centipedes here! Thousands, maybe millions!

5) Importance of Eye Contact

Sure, your high school teachers probably mentioned eye contact during presentations once or twice, but it’s super important to college professors. To be safe, I make eye contact with my professors whenever I enter or exit a room. If you wear glasses, be sure to take them off beforehand so the glass doesn’t get in the way of the surface of your eyeball rotating wetly against your professor’s. I wouldn’t recommend contacts, because they can fall out during the “ocular kiss.”

Divorcée Professor Desperately Plugs Office Hours

By Phil Forrence

Dr. Leo Johns’ 0616 Literature and Migration course took a turn for the worst last week when he finalized his divorce with his wife of eleven years. “He just won’t stop talking about his office hours,” Marco Royce, Johns’ student, laments. “He relentlessly tells of how much fun he and the students have there, but there are only twelve of us in the class and no one knows anyone who’s gone to them.”

“They’re a blast,” belts Johns, “Last week Maggie, good old Maggie, and her friend Jonathan swung by my office at 8 a.m. It was magical, we talked leisure, sports, arts and entertainment for hours. And I think those two love-birds might have a connection.”

“Nobody calls me Maggie,” clarifies Margret Ruffield.

“The other day I picked up a pen for Dr. Leo as I left class, and he hasn’t stopped telling people about what good friends we are.” Other students have noticed it too. Chris Diamond recalls, “He told me that if I stopped by his afternoon office hours he and I might get a visit from his old friend ‘Mary-Juana’ and when I told him I was busy he violently offered to write me a letter of recommendation to graduate school.”

“What I try to teach to my students is to not learn the lesson, but learn how to learn to learn the lesson. The problem with modern education is we are so caught up in tests. What even is a test? You know what a real test is? A conversation. People talking to people. Science, history, or geography, it doesn’t matter what. That’s what it’s all about.”

“He offered me money to teach him about Tinder,” Says student Beth Fields, “And not a small amount of money either. His final offer was seventy-five dollars and a plain gold ring off his finger. It was sad.”

Next semester Dr. Leo Johns’ will be teaching two sections of 0315 Reading Poetry. His office hours will be listed on the syllabus.

Nothing Newsworthy Happened Tuesday

By Will Connor

The Pittiful News regretfully reports that nothing particularly notable happened last Tuesday, so we have no groundbreaking stories to report. However, it is our duty to provide the most important information. We’ve brought you the latest gossip and tidbits straight from the chatty people two rows in front of you in lecture.

Steve and Michelle got into another fight Monday night and Michelle called Hannah in tears, but they must have made up because they were holding hands two hours ago.

Jake got busted for possession… again.

Savannah and Sydney have been spending a lot of time together lately. Mia thinks they’re dating, but James “swore they’re both straight, but were crying the whole time.”

Katie’s goldfish died. How tragic.

George hooked up with Andrew’s ex girlfriend over the weekend, and now Andrew’s telling people he’s “gonna fight George.” George could not be reached for comment.

Mark came out to Angela as bisexual. This makes the total number of friends he’s come out to seven and number of complete strangers he’s trying to impress on Tinder 15.

Keith got sucked into some new video game and has been staying up listening to soundtrack remixes for the last week and a half.

David asked Macy out on Sunday, but then called her the day after and said he wasn’t ready for a relationship. He then asked if Macy wanted to do a casual-exclusive thing. She really liked him, but had to just leave. The nerve of the guy.

John did something too horrible to print.

Luke did something really shitty while blackout drunk and pissed off Kelly, who now won’t talk to him. This has naturally driven Luke to drink more.

Kyle did something we totally could have printed, but we forgot what it was.

Ben is still asleep.

Local Man Drowns in Pussy

By I.S. Mills

The Allegheny County man who died last Tuesday as a result of his injuries in a freak bachelor party accident has been identified as Todd O’Clerigan, 26. O’Clerigan sustained contusions on his head and chest and eventually succumbed to the effects of suffocation and brain damage. Before his death, Todd’s good friend Al Brinker attempted to summon emergency personnel to the scene, but was met with levity that later proved fatal:

11:56pm Dispatcher: Nine one one, what’s your emergency?

11:56pm Brinker: Todd! My friend Todd is… drowning in pussy! Help!

11:56pm D: Haha, nice. Good for him.

11:57pm B: No, it’s not nice! He’s being crushed by all the pussy-

11:57pm D: Yo, sweet. But if you don’t have an emergency I’m going to have to let you go.

11:57pm B: This is an emergency, my friend Todd is literally being smothered…

11:57pm D: Haha, what an absolute legend! Well, let me know how it goes with him. I gotta go though.

11:58pm Dispatcher hangs up.

During Brinker’s phone call, O’Clerigan was suffocating under the bodies of twelve exotic dancers. The dancers had been rendered immobile when a makeshift stage that the host of the bachelor party, Alan Sullivan, built, collapsed suddenly.

“There was dust and stuff everywhere and when it cleared we saw that the girls had been pinned, mostly in, like, a sitting position, to the ground by all the debris from the stage,” said Brinker of the incident.

“Todd said he was going to go get, you know, a better look,” explained another partygoer, who whishes to remain anonymous. “Like, the floor was Plexiglas, so he crawled under the stage to, you know.”

O’Clerigan was then trapped under the seated dancers when the stage collapsed. Family members of Todd O’Clerigan are planning to sue Alan Sullivan for damages.

Local Student Takes Break from Constant Anxiety to Eat Granola Bar

By Riley Weber

Spectators were amazed last Sunday when student Eric Mills arose from his couch in order to go to his kitchen and grab a snack. Mills proceeded to open a box of granola bars and after a brief pause, selected the chocolate chip flavor. He then returned to his spot on the couch, only stopping for a second to wonder about that stain on his coffee table.

This would be the third time that day Mills had moved from the couch, the first two being a trip to the bathroom and an accidental fall during a nap. “I was just between thinking about how I’m going to fail my Biology lab and thinking that that girl in my calculus class thinks I’m a goddamn loser when it occurred to me that I should probably eat something so I don’t waste away and die,” Mills said. The excursion to the kitchen took place at approximately 4:56 PM according to Mills. “I know because around that time my friend asked if I wanted to hang out and I remember thinking that I couldn’t because I had too much work to do and also am a poison to those around me.”

Reactions to Mills’ trip were varied. The Quaker Oats Company put out the following statement “We’re very pleased that Eric chose our product for his existential crisis. We hope to maintain the image that our company makes the perfect product for not letting your body digest its own muscle in order to survive.” This event is following the groundbreaking venture by Katherine Dolphman, who attracted media attention when she stopped in the middle of her mental breakdown drink a glass of water earlier this week. Mills closed with the announcement that the granola bar was somewhat satisfying, and that he may even try to eat another tomorrow after putting his life back together piece by piece.