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After a two-and-a-half-year absence, The Daily Orange’s Humor Column is returning to poke fun at campus and topics relevant to students. Eliot Fish is the successor to our previous humor columnist, Josh Feinblatt, and is a writer for the comedy show, “Live From Studio B.”

Hello faithful readers, and goodbye unfaithful readers. (Infidelity will not be tolerated in this column.) This is the first in what I hope to be a short yet stirring run of humor columns. In fact, this could be the beginning of the shortest serious relationship you’ve ever had, as I imagine you and I will get to know each other quite well in the coming months. I’ll write, you’ll read, and we’ll all have a few laughs. Or I’ll be fired. Either way, it should be entertaining for you.

Unlike this column, one thing that won’t be a short-term relationship for many of you is the renovated Schine Student Center. Much like an effective pencil sharpener, I’ll waste no time getting to the point.

Underclassmen, you must love New Schine like it deserves to be loved.

I am a second-semester senior who hung out in the ugly duckling that was Old Schine. You younger folks, with your “drivers license” (the song) and your fake driver’s license (the ID), have no idea what life on this campus was like before New Schine rolled around. It was — and don’t be too horrified when I say this — slightly worse.

In the days before New Schine, or the BNSE (Before New Schine Era), we had too many options. You and your friends could get food from Old Schine and try to find a chair in Panasci Lounge that First Year Players wouldn’t dance on top of, or you could head to Kimmel Food Court and entertain yourselves by playing “who’s drunk and who has naturally horrible balance?”

Luckily for you, choice has been taken out of the equation because New Schine has it all. It has more employees than the College of Visual and Performing Arts has success stories; a TV screen so large you actually feel like you’re there when you watch Syracuse lose its fourth straight game; and everyone’s favorite pizza chain: Tomato Wheel. New Schine has been made with students in mind, especially those of us who enjoy a massive amount of personal space on a 15-foot couch.

You, my friends, don’t deserve New Schine. Nobody does. If Old Schine was the truck your mom bought you for a $600 IOU, then New Schine is the sports car you will eventually overpay for despite believing you swindled those dealership chumps. New Schine is the girl the hero gets with at the end of the movie — and the girl who will inevitably dump him in the event of a sequel, as there’s just no way she’s in his league.

Hold on to her as tightly as you possibly can.

When we seniors are gone to a job market about as accepting of newcomers as Sadler Hall’s tightly guarded front doors, remember to love every aspect of New Schine for us. It’s everything we students always wanted, and I only wish we had more time with it.

So please, hug one of New Schine’s giant pillars with a useless outlet for me when I’m gone. And never let go.

Eliot Fish is a senior television, radio, film major who writes the humor column for The Daily Orange. He can be found at ebfish@syr.edu or in one of New Schine’s conference rooms because he “wants to know what luxury feels like.”

Published on February 15, 2021 at 8:26 pm