Doily Allergen Goes To White House To Speak on Mental Health

Since the beginning of Biden’s presidential term, celebrities have become a big part of reaching the people in times of crisis. Whether it be singer-songwriter Olivia Rodrigo advising the public to get their Covid-19 vaccines or South Korean pop group BTS visiting to warn about the dangers of racism against Asian members of society, there has been a big effort to bring America’s most publicly beloved figures to the historic building to help bring large scale awareness to our biggest issues. As part of his Unity Agenda, which focuses on youth mental health, the cast of popular comedy series Ted Lasso came to discuss the growing mental health crisis. Little did the public know, the beloved TV soccer coach and friends were not Plan A.

The staff of the Doily Allergen were alerted of their invitation to be speakers of the White House’s mental health crisis awareness event about two weeks before the event, but the event unfortunately coincided with their monthly “Making Fun of the Daily Iowan” meeting. The popular TV cast was brought on as the last minute replacement, but another event was planned for the Doily staff.

When asked about the booking of the newspaper staff for the meeting, President Biden responded, “We love that Cy the Cyclone!”

When we asked Chet Austin, Chief of the Mental Health Task Force, what the reasoning was, he told us, “Who could be more relatable to those suffering from a lack of proper mental care than college students?”

After a bit of self-reflection, we decided we agreed.

One of our editors, Oswald Ogundele, took the stage to discuss how stressful the lives of average college students can be.

“Have I slept in days? Have I eaten in hours?” Ogundele began. After a lengthy pause they continued. “If my high school counselor taught me anything, it’s that you wake up and you decide how your day will go. Sometimes, you just have to really try, like, really, really hard to be happy. You gotta wake up and just push like an ox through the day, just suffering and suffering until you can finally make it a good one through sheer force of will”

After a lukewarm reception to the first half of the speech, the staff of the Doily Allergen unfortunately ruined their own press conference. Writer Gina Craig stubbed her toe stepping up to the podium, uttering a way too audible “KMS” into the microphone.

Following a really long period of awkward silence amongst all parties in the room, Craig almost-whispered sheepishly into the microphone, “I think it’s best if we left you all with our best well wishes. Thank you for your time. I’m not going to kill myself.”

Upon their exit, the Doily Allergen staff returned to their hometown of Iowa City, where they could wake up the next morning and decide they would try really, really, insurmountably hard to make it a great day.