I was recently asked to write a humorous article for The Record. Never having written a humorous article before, my first thought was to play it safe and frantically decline the gracious request sent to me via Facebook Messenger by Hannah Hostetter. After all, who am I to follow in the Funnies Page footsteps of…well…Hannah Hostetter? (I swear I was going somewhere with that, but for the life of me I can’t really think of anyone else who writes for the Funnies Page. Don’t judge me, you know you all do the same thing I do and only read The Record if a friend got profiled in Perspectives. No? That’s just me? Fine.) The point is, I’ve never done this before, so bear with me please.

So it was that I sat down in the Kulp basement, and broke out the iPad to get crackin’ on this article. Typing articles on iPads is a fundamentally sobering endeavor, not for the faint of heart; for one thing, the keyboard is so tiny and cramped that you offten can;t spell wordss proprly. What’s worse, however, is the urge to procrastinate, a natural drive which the device I’m typing on right now only exacerbates.

I recently installed Spotify and Hulu on this iPad, and I’m making a supreme effort at the moment not to turn to the former and blast my ears out yet AGAIN listening to the Moulin Rouge soundtrack (curse you, Bryce Stopher, for introducing me to this auditory acid trip; with that said, the ‘Elephant Love Medley’ is my freakin’ jam), or alternately boot up Hulu to continue binge watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer (shut up! I told you not to judge me!).

I’m now running into writer’s as I pen (or should I say keyboard) this piece, so I’m looking up at the reproduction of a Mark Rothko painting on the wall of Kulp basement. It’s literally three rectangles of different colors on top of one another, and I feel slightly annoyed that if we’re considering this fine art, then where’s my exhibit in the Louvre?

I happen to have crafted multiple crayon-and-marker on copy paper masterpieces as a young child, several of which demonstrated a far deeper understanding of visual narrative than Mr. Rothko’s geometric jumble. I was particularly proud of one piece, still on display on a door in my grandparent’s house, portraying Superman wrestling a saber-toothed tiger. I know Rothko painted this piece in 1951 — no, I’m not an art major, despite the fact that I own several scarves — but I never realized that at any point in history did we consider quadrilaterals the epitome of artistic expression.

Anyhow, I suppose I really should get down to the business at hand; I need to write a funny article!

But then again, how exactly does one even do that? I’ve never thought of myself as a particularly funny person—occasionally amusing, sure, but I rarely intend to be, so I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. No, when I think funny, I think people like my roommate, Nathan Pauls (hey! He’s done stuff for the Funny Page before! I knew there had to be others besides Hannah).

What is it about some people, that almost everything they do is funny for some reason? Everybody knows somebody like that, and if you can’t think of anybody you know who’s like that…well, I wish I could say that means you’re the funny one, but it really just means you don’t know enough funny people, and your life is probably devoid of joy.

So, I guess I’ve written an article. No word yet on whether it’s funny—maybe it’s not, and I’ve just dragged The Record down beyond all hope of redemption. Perhaps we’ll be labeled as Fake News by the president, or maybe the Comm department will blacklist me to ensure that I never again sully the reputation of this esteemed publication. But I did it! I wrote an article! Look out, Pulitzer, here I come! Safire and Hearst may be rolling over in their graves, but I’m officially a published newspaper writer!