With this year’s Dandelion Day (D-Day) now over, some students may feel they didn’t get the most out of it. Many did, of course, get plastered in accordance with the time-honored Rochester tradition. However, for those of you who don’t feel like burying your pain under a deep layer of alcohol during future D-Days, here are some super depressing alternatives!
1: Check your bank account
Instead of getting drunk, raw-dog reality and find out how broke you are. Checking your bank account will not only instill a fear of spending money, but also impart an astonishing sense of guilt for all you’ve spent on alcohol, Starbucks, and UberEats.
2: Check your student loan debt
Checking your student loan debt is an extension of checking your bank account, but more soul-crushing. The ungodly amount of spirit-breaking angst you get from looking at a simple five- or six-digit number on your student loan bill is unmatched. Some may even want to take the extra step and calculate how many hours they’ll have to work on a minimum wage job before they’ll be able to pay off their student loans.
3: Cry in the library
One possibly cathartic way to spend your D-Day is to attempt to do homework, but spiral into despair as you realize you’ll never be able to satisfy the expectations that this school has for you (and that you have for yourself). For more extroverted students having a D-Day existential crisis, crying in the library is also an activity that may be done with friends. Shared trauma is one of the best possible ways to strengthen bonds, and there are few things more traumatizing than Organic Chemistry, writing a two-page essay (for STEM majors), or basic math (if you’re a humanities/social science major).
4: Think about your pet
While you can call family members, you cannot call a pet. Spending your D-Day thinking about the last time you were able to cuddle your beloved animal is a great way to shatter the last visage of mental strength you had left. Even alcohol won’t numb the pain.
5: Babysit your drunk friends
Be the designated sober friend of your group. This will involve chasing down your drunk friends to make sure they don’t do anything too stupid, like try to climb the carnival rides or go axe throwing. Wonder what you did to deserve this as you wait in the freezing cold for hours to buy some subpar poutine.
These are just a few alternatives to getting hammered. Ultimately, there are many other depressing options. Just find out what works best (read: worst) for you!
