Satirical Activity

For The Collegian, Winter Break is a time of respite from the constant stream of words bouncing around our heads. There are no articles due and no layouts to be done. It is a period of pure respite. So imagine our disdain while opening the office door when we hear what sounds like shuffling and pens moving on paper emanating from somewhere in the workspace. The Editor in Chief bravely pushed the door open and like clockwork the noise stopped suddenly and quite spookily I might add. I rushed to my desk to make sure no tampering had occurred and to my surprise I found papers covered in red pen, with large swaths of past articles marked off like a professor grading the exam of a TU athlete. Rhythmic symbols covering the front and backs of books and copies of old newspapers alike, but what was written scared me to my core. When I walked up to my desk, I found that my own name was the object of interest by whoever was co-opting my worktable. When I turned on the computer, the only thing still open on the device was a Safari tab, where the most recent search attempt was as follows: “Unfunny TU Collegian Satire Editor Name.” It appears that I have a stalker! The rest of the staff rushed to check their own computers and desks but only received glowing praise from the intruder. With a green pen, the phantom had written things like, “No notes, excellent work,” and “I loved the picture you included,” on many of my coworkers’ most recent layouts and articles. I ended up utilizing my immense computer science knowledge and googling some of the unique behavior that we experienced, and on an old abandoned forum called ParanormalActivityFanBlog.co.uk I learned some very interesting things. One poster named “Gh0stHun3r69XX” shared that he was a prolific writer at the Times not New York Times, but El Tiempo out of Columbia, and they had a very similar encounter in 1989. The entity had latched onto the sports department following a horrendous professional soccer season. They call it a “News Poltergeist” and it feeds on the energy of poorly written articles. Many of you will ask, did we try to expel the spirit at all, and yes, we did. We salted the area, called for a priest, he declined and even sprayed the room with some holy water I bought off of Amazon. But it really liked the sloppily completed, unfunny, drivel that was spewed out of the satire section by yours truly, and thus it refused to leave. We are currently looking for names to call our new mascot, so feel free to reach out. So I am writing this article today, not in apology to my endearing fans for the wavering quality of the State Run Newspaper, but instead in tribute to the malevolent entity that loves my terrible writing, this is for you.

Post Author: Grant Doolin