CHAPEL HILL, NC – Due to the increasing popularity of internationally purchased fake IDs, countless Chapel Hill and Carrboro sketchy people have found themselves unemployed, prompting public outcry in the sketchy community.

“I used to be someone, man,” said former ID dealer Chet Wilkins, who has since taken to playing dice games in Rosemary Street alleyways. “Well, not myself…some man named Greg Baxter. Greg was chill.”

The lower cost, higher quality, and the convenience of avoiding people like Greg has drawn many customers away from going to the Mom and Pop fake ID dealers’ homes.

“There used to be all these little extra costs,” said Trent Wiston, who purchased a fake ID a few years before the overseas boom. “You’d have to bring some food to–well the guy I bought it from was named Greg–and you’d have to bring him food and; shit, yeah, same guy. Okay, well, yeah you’d have to play Fifa with him too. It was just not fun.”

“He just licks his lips way too frequently for me to be comfortable hanging out with him,” he added.

But, that loss in business has left some in difficult times.

Wilkins, who dropped his Greg Baxter persona once he lost the fake ID, keeps a small apartment in Carrboro, where evidence of his former business is plentiful. Scattered across his kitchen table are dozens of stock ID photos, some with curly mustaches and eyepatches doodled on.

“Yeah, there’s not much to do around here,” asserts Wilkins.

There is an unmistakable emptiness in the apartment, most notably in the rectangular patch of unstained carpet in the corner marking where the TV used to be. Walls that were formerly covered with stolen street signs are now left bare, occasional holes marking times when his anger at the situation became physical and uncontrollable.

“How can I compete with the internet? I don’t have a hologram machine in here. I can’t afford free shipping,” said Wilkins, gesturing to the small craft station, purchased at A.C. Moore, where he did most of his ID work. “I’m just a blue collar man trying to make it in America. Where’s my union?”

“And how the hell am I supposed to feed these sketchy, sketchy mouths?” he added, pointing towards the pair of potheads sprawled on his couch, who were looking at the spot where the TV once stood.

“What was once a thriving business and viable option for the sketchy people of Carrboro and Chapel Hill has now vanished, gone the way of the milkman, Blockbuster and a good factory job. In its wake is left pain, frustration, and many unanswered questions,” said Tad Wallace, a professor of history at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focusing on the changing economy of North Carolina.

Still, amid this wreckage of a careening American Dream, some say there is still hope.

“Sooner or later, without fail, sketchy people without options will turn to meth,” said industry expert Martha Reinhold. “Buckle up, Chapel Hill.”

CHAPEL HILL, NC–Taking a long drag on the faint disgust of students and professors hurrying past him, flagpole smoker Darin Candler started his Wednesday morning, as always, by feeding his addiction to public disapproval.

“Under the flag is the only place on campus they let you smoke,” said the junior English major, shivering on the bright November morning beneath his reeking leather jacket and Sleigh Bells t-shirt. “If I’m gonna get my fix of alienation, I guess it’s gotta be here.”

As Candler filled his lungs with smoke, he looked up toward a passing undergraduate in a Patagonia pullover and ponytail. She cast her eyes toward him–long enough to take in his sallow skin and cigarette–then turned her gaze off to something in the distance, ignoring the eye contact that Candler searched for until she passed around the corner of Saunders Hall, out of sight. Candler exhaled slowly.

“That’s the stuff,” he said. “Only way to start the morning.”

“They act like no one in Chapel Hill smokes,” he mumbled, putting the cigarette back to his mouth.

There were, however, a few others huddled around the flagpole with Candler–a collection of lonely freshmen, anxious Carrboro residents, Latin American grad students, and lost, craggy-faced old men.

Collectively, they looked darkly across the quad, whose brick paths bustled with reproof. They muttered about asshole shift managers and classes they were behind on.

“We come back here,” Chandler said of the soot-stained island of censure and low esteem. “It’s our community.”

A young man with a nose ring and a cough, who Candler recognized from a comparative literature lecture, approached the flagpole. Searching his bag and coming up with a crushed box of American Spirits, he asked Candler if he had a lighter.

They inhaled the disapproval together.

by Chap Phillips | The Minor

Editor’s Note: Chap Phillips texted us the following review of Time Out last night.

10:30: going to country night actually, so not 100% sure I can write that article tonight.

10:36: if it’s time out, yeah, i’ll just swing by there drunk later. cool. cool. i’ll have it in by the morning.

11:02: just got here, so lt’s talk later about this, i’ll get the article in on time out, i know it’s important.

11:16: what time are you thinking, because I am kind of getting durnk already and I don’t want to stay out too late

11:25: noon. cool, cool, cool. plenty of time if i eat there late tonight. haha it’s hard beer is cheap.

11:26: thre only 25cents…

11:27: shit, meant to send as one text. fucking up.

11:29: burping is underrated

11:30: a lot mroe drink than i was epecting

12:02: might not be able to got u tht articles on tome goat drink

12:03: fuckin dunk, man. dude.

12:05: FUCK IT WE ARE GOIBG TO TIME OUT!!!!!!!!!!! WONT LT U DOIWN

12:12: so far man, GRANVILLEJESUS

12:15: why wuould make me walk so far

12:20: FUCK! WHR IS IT! THEYT MOVED?

12:21: THETYN FUCKIN MOVEDN NOT NAT GRNAIVMLE! WTF WGTF WHERE AREW THEN YNOW!

12:25: besidea wehre we were/couintry? goddamn we have to walk bacK? what ghe fuck fuck fuckin. i hate this shit. we have to walk bacK. it was right besdie country night?

12:30: just saw a man peettng a dog. where did they get the dog?

12:32: it was above us…bullshit. why didnt yuou say anyhign? we talled about ths. you said nothign. it was right above us….dickhole

12:35: neon signs are cool. make sre i say that in the article.

12:36: almost there, can smelll BISCUITS! CHEESEEEEEEEEEEE

12:40: about to order

12:41: why are polce in here…

12:41: they can tell, fuck

12:41: think they can tell?

12:42: chicken and cheese boyz

12:42: yeshhhhh

12:42: waitin….

12:42: want the biscuit

12:42: need the biscuit….

12:43: BISCUIT.

12:44: shit….that’s so good

12:45: 5/5

12:45: time out, this is the best

12:45: thats the title

12:46: “pause.time out: this is one good biscuit

12:46: great title

12:50: just publish this as article? this is good.

1:02: whoevr chees e is weird though, just left milk out…

1:05: one more biscuit, damn. police still here. cant stop the biscuit love. yum yum yum yum yum.

Your mouth can make SO many noises. From laughing along to your favorite Rom Com, to singing along to Beyonce in the shower (we’ve been there!), your mouth is the place for noise. When it comes to the TOP ones though, it’s hard to choose. Here are some of our favorites.

#1: The Winter Bird

#2: Death Scowl

#3: My First Time On a Jungle Gym

#4: Yelp

#5: The Mating Mammoth

#6: Joyful Ruckus

#7: Baby’s Giggle

by Mom | The Minor

Your room is a laundry basket, look at it, clothes all over the floor.

I don’t understand it. I just don’t. You come home, you say you’d like a laundry basket to carry your clothes from your room to the washers. So what do I do? I buy you a laundry basket. I bought one because you told me you wanted one. Because I’m your mother. And now, I come here and I see this. Clothes everywhere.

Do you even have the laundry basket I bought you? You do? Where is it? I don’t see it. Maybe it’s hiding under all these piles of clothes you’ve made.

It’s like a maze in here. Such a mess.

Please tell me you don’t bring girls in here at night. Do you? Just tell me you don’t let girls walk through this mess. If your grandmother saw this she’d have a fit, you know that? She’d have a fit right here.

You’re just like your father.

I’m not mad. All I’m saying is that if you didn’t want a laundry basket, you shouldn’t have asked me to buy you one. Do you think I like going 15 minutes out of my way to Bed, Bath & Beyond just to buy you something you won’t use? I have things to do.

I know you think I just sit around all day waiting for you to ask me to buy you a laundry basket or extra hangers or whatever else I buy you that you don’t ever use. But I’m busy. Your brother’s play rehearsals just started and I’m driving him back and forth to the high school every day. Back and forth, back and forth. And the other day he asked me to drive his friends home, too, and of course they live all the way down Mill Road. Then I’m home cooking dinner, putting food on the table. And do I ever get a thank you? No. And I don’t need one. But every once in a while it’d go a long way.

And don’t think I don’t know what you’re going to do. I know exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to pick up these clothes and then as soon as I’m out the door they’ll be back on the floor. All your cross country t-shirts back on the floor. And all of you’re little friends will come over and you’ll tell them how crazy I am. You’ll tell them all about your crazy mother, Judy.

“She was really cramping my style making me use the things she bought for me because she cares about me and loves me so much.” They’ll hate me for it because you’ll make them hate me.

Every time it’s the same.

Do I want to be the bad guy? Of course not. Do you think I just sit around wondering how to make my son miserable? No. But if I have to do it I will. God knows your father won’t do it. Where is he?

No, don’t pick up the clothes now. We have lunch plans with the Hochmans. I tell you these things and it’s like you don’t even listen. I told you three times yesterday. Don’t give me that blank stare like I’m the one who forgot to tell you about lunch with the Hochmans.

Do you use the planner I bought you? I bet it’s still in the Staples bag. It is, isn’t it?

One of these days you’re going to wake up and realize that things cost money. That planner cost money. Your laundry basket cost money. If you think you’re going to get through life wasting every dollar you make you’ll end up very unhappy. And wasting my money isn’t going to fly either.

Just put on one of your button-downs and let’s go. The least you could do is hurry. We’re already late.

Thank you. Thank you, my Grace, for finally getting up and doing something.

See what happens when you listen? We make progress. We clean rooms. We use our laundry basket.

Now go find your father and we can go to lunch.

Hey, look at me. I love you. We have to be hard as a parent sometimes, you’ll learn that.

Now go find your father.

CHAPEL HILL, NC—This week, evil mastermind Alder Von Hertsenberg gave up on his scheme to lease a Carrboro lair for the upcoming year.

Citing Carrboro properties’ visibly deteriorating conditions and their inordinate distance from UNC’s campus—the villain’s preferred location for frenzied havoc—Von Hertsenberg lamented his housing quandary.

“Every blithering idiot in the Legion of Evil tells me how lucky I’d be to live near Harris Teeter and Weaver Street Market,” sneered Von Hertsenberg through gritted teeth, his sunken eyes as black as the cloaks that hung from his neck. “I know goddamn well how close I’d be to Weaver. Fresh apples and guacamole can’t wash away the Kombucha stains on my walls where I should be mounting my ray guns.

“The world must be destroyed and I don’t have time to walk 20 minutes everyday,” he added.

Von Hertsenberg, who hopes to have annihilated all joy from the earth by the year 2018, said many of his friends had easily found places to create mass terror in the community, but for him it had been difficult.

“The Horned Rhino found a place to fit an entire zoo and I can’t find a place that can even accommodate my serums that turn people into koalas,” Von Hesternberg said. “I’ve been on Zillow everyday for a month, this is exhausting.”

Von Hertsenberg, his hands clenching a spiked, rusty orb, elucidated on commuting between a Carrboro lair and UNC’s campus.

“Do you have any idea how difficult it would be to carry my death contraptions in the basket of some want-to-be hipster’s bicycle? If Operation: Alert Carolina is to succeed, it will need to be at least…”

At this point Von Hertsenberg’s words trailed off into raspy whispers, his head cocked at an unnatural angle.

“If you reveal to anyone what I have just told you,” he spat. “I will snap you like a twig. Your village will burn.”

Even after expanding his search to Franklin and Rosemary Streets in Chapel Hill, the depraved anti-hero says he has found no potential nests to hatch his insidious plots.

“Which of you senseless nitwits named an apartment building Warehouse and then filled it with blundering, blonde sorority sisters?” he hissed. “I expected something barren, something damp and dark. What I found was Shortbread 2. When will you fools realize you have two Shortbreads in this hellish town?”

Indeed, with few housing options remaining for next year, Von Hertsenberg says he may be forced to return to UNC housing with his protégé, Pilson Warker.

“I’ll tolerate it if I must,” snapped the mastermind, his fingers plastered to each of his bulging temples. “But if some headstrong resident advisor tries to be a hero again, I’ll grind his bones to a thick paste.”

CHAPEL HILL, NC–Acknowledging that it can be difficult for undergraduates to form one-on-one connections with their professors at a large research university, a report issued this week by UNC’s Center for Faculty Excellence confirmed that piggyback rides are still the best way for students and professors to get to know each other.

“Supportive relationships are essential to doing well in college, but for many students, forming those relationships with faculty can feel overwhelming,” said Eric Muller, Director of the CFE, who co-authored the report. “But whether you want to communicate your academic interests, get help with tricky course material, or find ways to do undergraduate research, our study shows there’s still no better way than to hop on a professor’s back, loop your knees over their arms, and ride them around the quad for half an hour.

“A lot of students feel intimidated by the prospect of emailing a professor to schedule a piggyback ride,” he added, “but when we talk to professors, they say they really value that time with undergrads. They wonder why, week after week, no one shows up to their scheduled piggyback ride time. At least not until midterms roll around, that is!

“Most students view piggyback rides only in terms of getting help with homework or cramming for exams,” he said. “But they can be so much more.”

Junior chemistry major Brian Martree said piggyback rides have been essential to his academic progress at UNC.

“Until last year, I didn’t think I needed a professor to lug me around like that,” he said. “But then Professor [James] Jorgenson made me come see him for a piggyback ride after I got a bad grade on a test in his analytical chemistry class.

“As I climbed up onto his back, I could tell he was upset,” Martree continued, “but over the course of the ride he made it clear he was more concerned than anything. By the time he set me down, I knew he really believed I could do better.

“I started going in for piggyback rides every couple weeks or so after that, talking directly into his left ear about my problems, and very quickly things turned around in his class,” Martree said. “Now I’m doing research in his lab, and he’s writing me a letter of recommendation for research fellowships this summer.

“I just call him James now,” he said.

Though Martree’s experience and the report show what piggyback rides can do for students, many say the system is not perfect.

“I had one professor who put piggyback ride times on her syllabus,” said one sophomore who asked not to be named, “but every time I went, she acted like I was just wasting her time. She was all like, ‘Yeah, I’ll take you for a couple laps around the building, I guess.’

“During the ride, all she would say was how I could have found answers to all my questions in the book, and how heavy I was getting,” the student continued. “I could tell she just wanted to set me down and get back to her research.”

Others complained that they had tried to initiate piggyback rides after class and been rebuffed.

“I waited in line to talk to my professor and tried to very casually transition into a piggyback ride as we walked out of class together,” said Kim Foster, sophomore biology major. “It just did not work.

“I sort of landed on the floor beside him, and I tried to play it cool, but our relationship was ruined after that,” she added.

The authors of the report say that such instances are regrettable, and that they hope faculty can learn from the welcoming, constructive approach that some professors take to piggyback rides. They pointed to faculty, such as Bill Ferris, the Joel R. Williamson Eminent Professor of History, whom they said should be emulated.

Ferris, who was red-faced and slightly out of breath, having just returned from a piggyback ride through the Arboretum with a student who had questions about graduate school applications, said piggyback rides are essential to professors, too.

“I try to make plenty of piggyback rides available to students and really listen to what they have to say while they’re back there,” Ferris said. “Most students have great ideas and interests they’re passionate about, and with a little support, it’s amazing to see what they can accomplish.

“Sometimes I feel like they’re the ones who should be giving me piggyback rides, not the other way around,” he joked.

Asked if he had any more to add, Ferris extended his hand and said there was only one way to really see what piggyback rides are all about.

“Hop on,” he said.