Dear Hungry Hungry Hullabaloo,

Our time together is drawing to an end, and there are a few things I need to get off my chest. It may be uncouth, or straight up uncool to call you out so publicly, but it’s not like anyone is reading this.

You stole college from me. Call me dramatic, but you ate everything. My social life, my time, even my sanity. Every Wednesday night starting junior year I’ve squirreled myself away in an airless, windowless basement like a 1980s virgin playing Dungeons and Dragons. Only in this dungeon, the dragon is a student body that hates us for trying to keep them informed.

I’ve spent hours — every week since I got to college — interviewing, editing and writing stories, and what did it get me? My parents worry that I’m a bitter, angry person with zero job prospects. Couple that with my philosophy major, and it becomes blatantly obvious that my college career was a long, poorly-received joke. The punchline of which is that I chose this, because I hate myself.

It got better once I had a position of authority on this backwoods publication, but before that I suffered. I toiled under hipsters with awful music taste, a lanky giant who never learned my name and a guy who tried to nickname me “anus” my first week of college. Then, after clawing my way up, they pair me with some Canadian who’s probably just here to burn the White House down again and a big-haired flower child who still thinks it’s appropriate to say “groovy” in the year 2017.

As graduation nears, I find myself fantasizing about my life in Universe B. A world where I never joined The Hullabaloo, and did fun things instead. In Universe B, I have more than six friends. In Universe B, people think of me as an individual and not as a cult member. That being said, in Universe B, I’m not as happy.

Even with all the nonsense, I love this paper. The Hullabaloo became a family to me, and I love every crazy uncle and angsty teenage daughter I’ve met along the way. I wrote dozens of bitter angry airings in my time here, but even an emotionally-vacant old man like me can’t really complain about you. I’ve even fallen into some sentimental pitfall, and am tearing up at the fact that my time is coming to an end. You’ve broken me down and ruined me, and for that I say thank you.

Sadly Signing Off,

Graduating Grump