The Onion Bagel is a satirical column for The Statesman
Five-day break, two holidays (if you’re counting Black Friday) and there is still stress running through the mind of sophomore biology major Holly Melancholy. Class starts tomorrow and none of her assignments or papers or projects are done for the week. Why are professors giving Holly five billion things to do over Thanksgiving break? Do they not understand she has a life?
The Onion Bagel got the inside scoop on the consequences of adding stress to Holly’s “supposed to be jolly” weekend.
Going into the break, Holly had to work two 6 a.m. shifts at her bakery job in addition to staying up on Thanksgiving Eve seasoning a turkey and slicing sweet potatoes. Blackboard notifications and emails kept popping up on her phone from members of her group project. Holly had it and decided to rip her hair out and bake it in the food. She also decided to grab her trusty bong and hit it on the hour every hour while cooking. When asked if any marijuana was put into the food, Melancholy refused to comment.
“I’ve seen her get stressed, but never this bad,” Holly’s mother, Clarice Clause, said. “I raised a good, motivated woman.”
(The Onion Bagel does not condone substance abuse.)
The next day was Thanksgiving. Thank God Melancholy had to wear a hat as part of her work uniform because her head had an array of bald spots. After working for 12 hours, she wanted just a slice of her hairy turkey. Unfortunately, Holly barely got any of that bird, because her five uncles, four aunts, great grandma, grandma, mom, dad and seven cousins gobbled it up. All that was left of the feast by the time she got home was the roasted marshmallow part of the sweet potato casserole.
Holly didn’t get to stress eat, and she didn’t earn good tips at her job, but she did get to worry about her three discussion boards due the first day back, a group project, a midterm, catching up on two weeks of notes and two eight-page papers due at the end of the week. Oh my! Holly had it. Since she had bald spots already, she thought it would be a look to shave the rest of her head.
This wasn’t even the worst point of Holly’s stress. Black Friday came around. “Oh my gosh shoes! Oh my gosh five dollar crop tops? No way!” Holly thought. Though she woke up broke and early, Holly thought she could maybe snag at least one great Black Friday sale, even if it meant just grabbing a chew toy for her adorable pug, Elfie.
As she was going to turn on her car, it broke down. The poor girl was busy trying to celebrate the holiday season and shop with her friends. Was that too much to ask?
“Stress just happens to be a curse,” Melancholy said. “You can call it the Blackboard curse. It’s where you have so much school work that you wind up making your family eat hair turkey, y’know?”
Speaking of jolly, what happened to getting into the Christmas spirit the day after Thanksgiving ends? Oh wait, that’s Black Friday! But wait, there was no way Melancholy was getting into the spirit now. Or was there?
A day after our interview with Melancholy, the body of her friend Kristie Kringle was found buried by a bush at the mall. According to the North Pole News, Melancholy could be clearly seen on a closed circuit security camera leaving the scene of the alleged murder.
Melancholy declined to comment on Kringle’s death. If convicted, she will face 25 years to life of forced labor building stuffed animals for children of divorce. She did, however, give The Onion Bagel a message for the professors that ensured her schedule would be so full over break.
“Thank you professors,” Melancholy said. “Thank you for the extra stress this holiday break. Without it, I would have never wound up facing imprisonment. I’ve never had so much free time in my whole life. I couldn’t be happier.”
(The Onion Bagel does not condone murder.)