In a surprising twist, the school recently released an email that wasn’t part of the running tally of every single student who has fallen for the wily wiles of that most virulent of viruses, COVID-19. In an email with the subject line “Commencement 2020: God Help Us All,” a weary administrator huddling in an underground bunker with dwindling supplies released the school’s current plans for this year’s Commencement, prompting Off the Press to launch a four-day investigation into what “commencement” means. Our results have concluded that the school is actually referring to graduation, and the only reason it is called Commencement is due to a stipulation in Edwin A. Stevens’s will in which he instructed “Call [graduation] Commencement or something stupid like that, so all of the feeble-minded graduates get confused and eaten by bears when they get lost and start wandering around.” Historical side note: bear attacks were extremely common in Hoboken during the 1800s, due to both the sparsity of settlements to the west and also the common fashion practice at the time to lather oneself in honey and loudly threaten to set forest fires.
Speaking of transitions, let’s return to Commencement 2020. In the email, the school announced that Commencement would be pushed all the way to October 17, 2020, much to the dismay of the few surviving seniors scattered around the desolate landscape that used to be the tri-state area. The school cited possible safety concerns that led to this decision, including CDC guidance against large gatherings, as well as the fact that President Farvardin, who traditionally would lead the ceremony himself, has so far refused to step foot outside of his emergency crisis bunker. Every time someone comes up to the tiny viewport that makes up the entirety of Farvardin’s connection to the outside world, he absolutely loses it and refuses to speak to them unless they can prove that they’ve showered with Purell beforehand. Multiple people have attempted to calm the president down, but he always releases his lovable hellhound, Martini, clad in a modified hazmat suit to bite their ankles. It appears that the president also put some kind of corrosive substance on Martini’s teeth, resulting in the loss of over thirteen reported ankles. “I just don’t know what to do!” said one of Farvardin’s assistants, noticeably ankle-less. “We’ve tried luring him out with all of his favorite things—chocolate, Scrabble, tuition money—he just won’t budge!”
Many seniors have expressed dismay at this new development; we can only assume their expressions were dismayed, as our internet cut out as we were asking them about it and their resolution dropped significantly. “This is outrageous!” said a particularly pixelated senior, slamming their boxy fist on what we assume is a table but could very well be an extremely large bar of chocolate. “I have to wait until October? That’s practically years away!” The senior’s anger seemed to grow inversely to our internet connection, as our Zoom call began to deteriorate faster than the ice cream I put in my microwave to make it absorb the radiation and give me superpowers. “I can’t believe those—my graduation, you absolute—I’d like to wring those sons of—Texas Welcome—peppercorn!” The student then became so enraged that our office 2004 Dell laptop caught fire, their ominous last words hanging in the air.
Off the Press can certainly sympathize with the seniors on this issue, though of course none of us are graduating, due to the fact that we sold our souls to The Stute decades ago and as a result are doomed to write high-quality and widely-beloved articles for another 10 billion years or until the Sun explodes, whichever comes later. If any of the current seniors still want to experience the thrill of graduation, they can follow the example of several schools and perform an online Commencement. We personally recommend you check out https://www.roblox.com/games/4868242067/Online-Graduation-Ceremony, it’s a great tool to get your graduation kicks in before the big day in October.
Disclaimer: We do have to disclose that this article has been sponsored by Roblox user 1p_x, so take our earlier recommendation with a grain of salt, then add pepper to taste.
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