Disclaimer: The Daily Tar Hell is purely satirical, don’t take it too seriously.
For years, there’s been an elephant in the room regarding what happens at the end of our night of booze-filled escapades. It’s a dark and sinister truth that no one cares to admit: No matter how clean cut or rich you are, no matter how intoxicated or by what means that intoxication was achieved, at the end of the night, we all end up at Cook Out. Indeed, though it is shameful and below us, none can resist the plentiful milkshakes and delicious melted meat and cheese monstrosities that allure the drunk and hungry from miles away.
Akin to the midnight splurge of stale potato chips and fudge-brownie ice cream in the middle of a diet, the drunken pilgrimage to the land joyous self-indulgence is a rite to which even I, myself, have been ashamed to admit. To this I say, no longer. It is time that we as rich, overly academic society come together and accept that Cook Out isn’t just for the cheap and nutrition avoidant scum of society. I am ready to come out and say it: I love drunk Cook Out and I’m not ashamed to admit it.
We need to show support for the Drunk Burger Taster’s community. Our needs have been neglected for too long. So, what if all that can satiate me at 2 in the morning, the time when all I can talk about is that one night I downed seven shots of fireball, is a Hi-C milkshake and a delicious concoction of cornbread and hotdog on a stick shoved down my gullet? (And don’t even get me started on milkshake flavor shaming, because that is a low blow.) I’m doing what I must do to express myself, and if I have to tell the cashier to keep the change from a $100 bill for my $4.99 Cook Out tray, then so be it.
But here’s the rub: It’s not enough to show our support just through words alone. We need to make a space for our drunk Cook Out lovers within the Chapel Hill area. It has been far too many nights whereupon achieving my ideal level of intoxication I’ve had to split an Uber with my squad for a 20-minute ride to Durham just for the delicious, artery clogging commiseration that is Cook Out.
By now, many of you are probably aware of the protests going on to prevent the expansion of Cook Out to Franklin Street. Despite it being 2017, our fellow students are still so blinded by their fatphobia that they would go so far as to deny us of our only safe space. Don’t be fooled by their claims of “lack of economic incentive” or “poor blend of restaurant motif.” These bigots simply want to propagate campus elitism which in itself is well and good, but to deny the disenfranchised of their own space in the process is not okay.
To these students, I say: Stand down, and be honest with yourself. Perhaps your irrational hatred of a good deal and delicious burgers stems from an inner desire for something more from your nightlife; something with milkshakes, hushpuppies and a lack of indoor seating. It’s time that we should be able to enjoy nice things on campus. After all, if those heathens in Raleigh can have a Cook Out less than a mile away from campus, why shouldn’t we?
