Volume 7
The Black Sheep
F wee ree! Li ken ke yo d be ur cau sche se y dule ou’r th e so is coo l.
The College Newspaper That's Actually About College
Issue 7
How to Spend a (Not) Lonely Thanksgiving at Clemson Austin Cope wrote this
hile it may be hard to believe, not everyone goes home for Thanksgiving break. These rare Tigers cite different reasons for their staycations: they don’t want to spend the money on airfare, or their home doesn’t exist after mom got transferred to Des Moines, Iowa, or dad’s new wife is the same age as a Clemson freshman. No matter the reason, many think Thanksgiving gets quite lonely for these students. Not this year! Not again. There are lots of ways to celebrate Thanksgiving all by yourself up at Clemson, and The Black Sheep is going to lay them out. The most important thing for Thanksgiving dorm dwellers is to ensure you know how to cook a serviceable Thanksgiving dinner in a microwave, since trekking down to the dorm lounge all alone just to use the oven for a single-serve turkey would be super-depressing. As a general rule of thumb, it’s always best to keep away from normally-populated locations—like the dorm lounge—when alone on holidays. The easiest and most popular way to have Thanksgiving in a microwave is to put a Publix turkey sub in the microwave and heat it up slightly. When you’re inevitably watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, you can tell Snoopy how good the turkey is, just like the kids having a family Thanksgiving. Another Thanksgiving must is to play a pick-up football game, and why should that be any different when you have no family or friends within a 50-mile radius?
Head on over to Bowman with a pigskin and throw that sucker across the field. Then go tackle it. Form a one-man dog pile. Tell yourself it’s just as good as the real thing and then take off running again. The pain of exercise will make you forget the pain of loneliness. Later, without the distraction of food and play, you may begin to feel loneliness creep into your heart. For a little loving interaction, go visit the feral cats that prowl around campus. Pet them to cool off after football or calm your stomach after your Pub sub or just because you’re feeling desperate. Don’t take them home with you, though. That would be unfair to all the other lonely people who also use cats to fill voids in their lives. Also, be wary of giving too much attention to them, because they really don’t care about you at all. Remember, that is absolutely not a reflection of how you deserve to be treated. You deserve better! Another authentic Thanksgiving staple is watching football, so after you disinfect that bite you got from trying to hug the cat, sit down and watch some NFL action. Then, after about a quarter of undivided attention, you can look up why the Lions always play on Thanksgiving, something you wouldn’t usually do because you weren’t bored enough, people were over, and nobody really cares. You’ll get lost in learning, discovering that the Lions owner G. A. Richards created the tradition as a gimmick to try to get more people to go to the games —he also shot a bear, chal-
PAGE 5 STUDENT’S BRAIN BREAKS AFTER BEING ASKED “CAN I BORROW A PENCIL?” BUT REALLY, HOW DO YOU FORGET A PENCIL!?
lenged the Chicago Bears, and threatened to eat the bear after they won (they lost). Hey, learning fun facts is the same as having friends! If none of these suggestions works, there’s still one final option: Single person parade. First you need to find a big stick —the trees around Littlejohn should suffice— and a single balloon. Get a shopping cart
from a local grocery, preferably Bi-Lo for some added Clemson spirit; some rope and a boom box from 1986 or some other form of sound amplification. Take your big stick and wave it around like a baton; you can add to the festivity by lighting it on fire, if you’re feeling dangerous. Get the balloon and tie it to your wrist—if you didn’t fill it with helium it may drift to the ground so just drag it along. So symbolic.
Wrap the rope around your waist and tie the other end to the shopping cart with your boom box in it and blast the cadence count. Spell Clemson by yourself as you march through an empty downtown. Stop at Sonic and get a burger if you get that far. Bottom line, this Thanksgiving, if you’re stuck in Clemson: Don’t kill yourself, just lie to yourself!
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PAGES 10-11
CLEMSON VS. USC: A HOUSE DIVIDED
TERRIBLE BOYFRIEND NEGOTIATES THREE-WAY
A GENERATION-OLD FAMILY FEUD TAKES A TURN FOR THE WORST.
DESPITE TIGHT FIRM MOBILITY AND FALLING STOCK PRICES.
FOLLOW US @BLACKSHEEP_CLEM NOVEMBER 13th, 2014 - DECEMBER 3rd, 2014 THEBLACKSHEEPONLINE.COM