It’s the first Monday meeting of the new semester. My boss is going across the room finding out what people in the newsroom are working on for the paper. Please skip me. Please forget that I work here. Pass over me because I barely do journalism.

“Simons, what are you working on this week?” asks Boss Miller.

Damn it.

I’ve had the entire break to come up with something for Mouthing Off and I’ve got nothing. I’m still trying to figure out why I woke up underneath a pool table on New Years morning, let alone an idea for a satire column for my school paper.

“Well, um, I was thinking about writing a column. Yeah.” I am so screwed.

My Red Bull breakfast hasn’t even kicked in yet and already I’m trying to figure out how to ingest enough caffeine to magically produce a funny yet biting column for the winter welcome back week. It’s really not as easy as it seems. And energy drinks are pricey.

First, I’ve got to show up to school before noon. The things I do for this paper.

Then I have to put up with my lovely cavalcade of co-workers, stuffed into a steam-cooker of an office with as much cell phone reception as a mine shaft.

When I do finally get a column out, I send it off to the copy desk where they remove all the expletives and carefully explain to me how offensive the column is.

I then come up with a photo or graphic idea for Jason Willis, who I’m pretty sure sacrifices live animals to get his graphic design skills. I tell Jason my idea and then I wait for him to finish doing the for-real news stuff.

Then I ask Jason again two hours later.

Then I ask Jason again two hours later, and with the prospect of maybe buying him a Sam Adams when he finishes, and less than 10 minutes later I put the graphic on my page.

“Why don’t you mouth off about the start of a new semester?” someone said to me, unaware that I did that last semester (“New Semester Shakedown,” check it out online). No one read it because we didn’t have school for a week due to the professor’s job inaction. This newsroom could use another strike. We could afford that.

I could mouth off about the non-consentual pillaging the bookstore does to our bank accounts. Last semester I bought a three pack of geography books I was told I needed for my class. I never opened them, never used them once for class. That set me back $170. My friend needs to spend $90 on a book about movies and another friend spent $374 on two books. It’s academic racketeering and they should at least buy our wallets dinner first.

“Hey, the Lions still suck, make fun of them.” As much fun as it is to kick a man while he’s down, poking fun at the team is like beating a dead horse. A national embarrassment of a dead horse.

A University of Michigan fan and friend of mine said I should mouth off about how Michigan State lost in the Valero Alamo Bowl to Texas Tech. I then told him that the Wolverines didn’t make it to a bowl and that he could kiss my Spartan ass.

“Michigan is cold!” I know, get over it.

“Detroit is poor!” That’s great, deal with it.

“Parking sucks!” Carpool or something. I drive a car made during  the Cold War and I have a 40 minute commute to school. It doesn’t heat up until I turn onto Squirrel Road. Cash for Clunkers wouldn’t even take my car; it has more rust than the Titanic and gets less miles per gallon.

“What about New Years Resolutions?” I would, but I made a resolution to not do cliché topics. It’s less than a week into 2010 and people have already stopped caring that it’s a new decade. People are still going to eat crap, despite Taco Bell trying to pull a Subway and advertising their new Fresco menu as a serious weight loss strategy. They are still going to spend more money than they should, and they are still going to smoke.

Oh, and smoking. There is that smoking ban that’s going to take effect in May and make already irritable  smokers even more pissed off. One of my friends wanted me to mouth off about marijuana laws. I’m going to be blunt and say I don’t indulge in that particular recreation, so I’d need to do a joint authorship on the subject.

Wait a second, that’s it. No, not the weed, the other people writing Mouthing Off columns. Anyone can write for this section, you know. You don’t have to be a member of The Oakland Post, or even a journalism major. And if you read some of the articles last semester, you know that you don’t even really need to be that funny to get printed. Like this column, for example.

Mouth Off, Oakland. Get an opinion and coat it in snarky, witty, clever rhetoric. If you don’t think it’s funny, don’t worry, I can guarantee you I’ve had worse ideas handed to me (Televised sheep fighting. ‘Nuff said). Sure I can eventually near-overdose on caffeine and come up with something, but this is your student paper, so you start writing for it.

Grizzlies, if I get more than 50 legitimate Mouthing Off articles sent to [email protected] before the end of the semester, I’ll do something crazy like publish in this section a photo of me wearing a leopard print Snuggie.

Please, anything to get my boss to stop glaring at me.