In the spirit of the new school year, we at the Shady Dealer have decided to plan ahead for a change, “fall”-ing forward into the quarter’s warm embrace before “spring”-ing back into our habitual state of procrastination.* So while these obituaries might seem a bit premature, they’ve going to be relevant at some point, and we figured we’d get ahead on this curve before getting boned by several others.

In Memoriam (To-Be): Your Pinterest-Ready Indoor “Garden”

You thought it would be a nice, happy garden when you first set out, but now, looking down at the barren wasteland of plant skeletons on your radiator, it reminds you more of a WWI battleground. You were too busy watering yourself with booze to give these guys a chance, and now what do you have? Mostly dirt, like Cain, or maybe more like Captain Jack Sparrow. Either way, you’re way less cool than them, and now you’ve got to bury your sad mostly-dirt with even more sad Chicago dirt. Don’t forget: if you don’t toss those corpses in a hole somewhere, then not only will you be unable to hide the shame of your failure as a plant-parent from the prying eyes of God and man, but also their little plant souls can’t go to little plant heaven or, in the case of the atheist plants, to little plant hell.

Have fun digging that grave in the frozen ground this winter!

Requiescat In Pace (Simul): Your Dislocated Lower Vertebrae

Your spine had lived a long, somewhat okay life, surviving near-constant slumping, the abuse of ill-fitting bras, and two yoga classes that catastrophically interrupted a successful lifelong career of exercise abstinence. So what ended up being your lumbar’s cause of death? Moving a year’s worth of accumulated crap down six flights of stairs this spring. You remember those upperclassmen laughing at you for buying that minifridge during O-Week? This is why. What really did you in was sneaking that unlawful fifth box into the storage room; had you not done that (or instead ditched your copies of Capital and A Theory of Justice in your dorm boyfriend’s suitcase), you might not be paraplegic right now. But look at it this way: as hard as it was moving all that stuff down, it’s going to be even worse carrying it back up again.

Pour One Out (in a Few Months): Your Interest in Grad School

This one’s a real bummer, fellas. Somewhere in the past, or maybe even during your time in the Core, a small glowing seed was planted within you. It took root on fertile soil, with your mind ripe for rigorous academic inquiry and your heart open to seeing things differently. With a careful diet of canonical texts and critical theory, the seed sprouted, its tiny baby leaves growing up, up, up! A flower of an idea appeared. It whispered: Go to grad school.

And then you hit spring quarter, and not only did you shit the bed, but your poor course performance took a big, steaming dump on the idea that you wanted to learn anything ever again. Consign this dream to the dung heap before it can take root, lads—trust us, you’ll thank us later.

* Is that right? It’s probably right. We’re still not 100% sure about the whole time zone thing.