For more than 100 years, we here at Doctors’ Orders have been bringing nose exhalations, chuckles and maybe — if we’re lucky — even laughter to the Elon University community. But you may have noticed a certain column quite like the one you’re reading missing from the last issue of The Pendulum.
Maybe you thought, “Hey, Frankie and Lauryl have been working so hard, they deserve a week off.” Maybe you’re even a professor, and you also thought, “Frankie and Lauryl deserve straight As this semester. What chipper young scholars they are.” Thanks, Teach.
But the truth is worse than you could ever imagine. We procrastinated. There’s not a cute medical misnomer for this. It’s just a case of not living up to our potential and failing to deliver on the work ethic we’re internationally renowned for. This is a newspaper, and there are strict deadlines. None of that Moodle extended-time Little League nonsense. That’s why they say, “It’s hot off the presses.” Because it’s that fresh.
You see, we had a great Doctors’ Orders lined up for you fine readers, asking the most important question of our era: Why the hell is Einstein Bros. Bagels closed on Sundays? That’s primo bagel time, Elon Dining! Also, no one knows when Argo Tea is open, we’d still rather have The Oak House on the meal plan than a Starbucks and the death of weekend Colonnades brunch says something about us all.
There were loads of great bread puns in this column we were proud of, too. We’re talking some fine wordplay, son. But when we failed to meet the deadline, the bagel column was toast. (See? See what could have been?)
You’ll never get to read it. Or maybe you will, online, if you find yourself perusing our archives on the recently revamped Pendulum website at www.elonpendulum.com.
We could’ve been in the paper, and we blew it all sky high. And now we’re making it our own headline all just because we ... missed our deadline. (For that last joke to land, you have to have been conditioned to think of the ripped pants song from Spongebob when you see the words “blew it all sky high.” We’re willing to take the chance with that one.)
But everyone gets bitten by the procrastination bug, and it’s a nasty piece of work, not unlike getting bitten by, say, a radioactive spider.
Like Spider-Man, it comes with great responsibility — that you naturally shirk. Unlike Spider-Man, you get no actual superpowers, and it doesn’t help you romance any hot babes, either, and mostly it’s just a headache, so it’s actually not like Spider-Man at all. And, while we’re talking Spider-Man, you can’t just take selfies and sell them to the newspaper to make a living. We’ve tried.
There are plenty of normal reasons you might catch yourself procrastinating. It could be simply because you are overworked, overwhelmed, unrested and underfed (probably because there are no reliable bagels on Sunday mornings). Procrastination becomes your solution to this other problem, because otherwise, slaving over your schoolwork might make you break out in hives.
We here at Doctors’ Orders call this phenomenon “Life in Capitalist America” when you’re only as valuable as what you can or cannot produce. Students have become cogs in the academic machine, forced to forego intellectual fulfillment in order to make the grade, get the job and/or get into graduate school. There are only two things certain in life: debt and taxes.
In which case ... procrastinate away, my friend. Hakuna matata. Yolo. Etc. Etc. Go buy a bagel, if it’s not Sunday. Your column might not get into the paper, but you’re sticking it to the system. Bagel on, reader. Bagel on.