HAMILTON, NY — Local reporter, me, doesn’t have time to actually come up with an idea for this article, and apologizes profusely to all parties involved. 

Look, it’s not that I don’t want to write for the Monthly Rag, I really do, but my first priority is my education, and I’m afraid I don’t have time for a ‘number’ word column; I’m genuinely sorry.

So yeah, I’ve made certain, “bad decisions,” with respect to time management that if I had handled responsibly would’ve allowed me to write an adequately funny, intelligent article. But sometimes, you’ve just got to go to a *obscure club name here* pub and play a drinking game where you watch the Scooby Doo movie and take a shot every time something screams, “I was made in the early 2000’s, can’t you tell?” Sometimes, you have to blackout and wake up next to a guy in an ascot with a tail in your ass.

But now that my two day hangover is over, I need to finally buckle down and focus on my academics. Sure, I didn’t do the last few problem sets, and maybe I haven’t attended lecture since mid-September, but school is really important to me, and Professor…oh, what’s their name…? Well, it’s besides the point anyways; the point is that I can’t allow an extracurricular, especially one like The Monthly Rag to get in the way of a Bachelor’s degree, so I’m afraid that I just won’t be turning in an article, and that even if I did, it certainly wouldn’t be a size within relative uniformity of the other articles in the issue.

No! Stop asking me, I don’t care that I do this for every club and that if I didn’t go on three month coke benders, I could write a simple page long joke article, but it’s not that simple, and I’d appreciate it if you’d stop. Listen, my addiction to a copious amount of varied drugs in no way affects the quality of my life, and I don’t have a problem.

See? Now I’m agitated and I’ve dropped my heroine needle. Don’t you know I need it to study? Look, see, my Astro textbook is right here, I’m just about to start, honestly. What’s that? This is just a Flat Stanley picture book? Well fuck off! How I study is my business! Now where’s that damn needle?

Oh, oh, and now I’m just wasting the reader’s time with a one-gimmick comedy article that’s gone on for way too long and devolved into an extremely distasteful running gag about drug addiction, a topic that is serious and relevant to the college aged Colgate student body? And that now I’m just using meta-jokes to distract that I’m reminding them that we’re all slaves to our dopamine receptors and that impulsive behavior from procrastination to drug abuse will hound us all our lives and that the consequence of such behavior has nothing to do with the merit of the individual but whether they were lucky enough to develop the addictions they can live with? Well, even if I wanted to engage with those ideas, I wouldn’t, because I just don’t have the time to write this article, and that’s my final answer. Suck it, Monthly Rag, and checkmate!

HAMILTON, NY — As the first month of college for the freshmen of Colgate University draws to a close, a common anxiety befalls the dorms: the five grams of marijuana they had left in their mason jar or stolen tupperware container is swiftly depleting. As students continue to use the drug to ease their social anxieties, they must find a new source for their sticky green. 

“What will I do to ease the tension of a Tinder hookup?” says member of the freshman class, Mary Kusch. “I only match with seniors, and they provoke anxiety.” Ms. Kusch later explains that her “constant” trips to The Jug, a local establishment, are “tiring,” and finds that “lighting up in the showers of Gate House” helps her to calm down after a long week of going out.

Ms. Kusch admits that she uses the drug marijuana as somewhat of a “crutch” to ease her social interactions, as she is having trouble transitioning into the party culture at the school. Soon, the mason jar full of dryer sheets, her pipe, and a lighter, will be absent of the “whacky tobacky” Mary has become so dependent on, and she is looking for what she calls a “plug.” 

Mary is not alone in her search.  In fact, sources say about 78% of the class of 2022 has no idea where to purchase marijuana in the small town of Hamilton. “It’s not New York,” says Kyle, Ms. Kusch’s classmate, “[a student] can’t just take a 40-minute train ride downtown to find a dealer.” 

Many students we spoke with are resorting to urban connections such as these and the extensive package delivery service at Colgate to keep them in the green. Others, however, speak to the fact that “the line in the [O’Connor Campus Center] is too long for [them] to wait for packages.” They would much rather purchase their drugs the old-fashioned way: late night, with the hoods of their Ivy (or Baby Ivy) League sweatshirts up, in the far corner of a parking lot, sneakers tied tight in case they need to run from the authorities. 

The search for a new plug is much like searching for a new doctor. Patient-doctor confidentiality is a given, as well as a mutual trust between the two. A good doctor would never give their patient the improper medicine, but this relationship takes time to build, and it’s anxiety-provoking for many students to attempt this task. Some have resorted to self-medicating with their current stores of reefer, which further diminishes their resources, exacerbating their need for a new plug. 

The vicious cycle continues until the student is forced to grovel at every pregame, every Jug night, even in their extracurriculars, for a trace–an inkling of a plug. “Give it two more weeks,” contributes second-year Jane Keefner, “they’ll figure it out.” The optimism displayed by older students is only slightly reassuring to the freshmen, as they currently stare into the abyss: the thought of going a few days without getting high is terrifying–enough to warrant a few joints to “take their mind off it.”