by Liz Wiest. @lizkhawiesta.
PITTSBURGH, Penn. - Local playwright Erica Fitzgerald announced she finally found a productive use for her MFA diploma since his haphazard virtual graduation ceremony back in May- rolling blunts out of it.
“For the first time since the pandemic hit, I can really feel my two years of work toward a Masters making a difference in my everyday life,” said Fitzgerald while putting on her uniform for her now-permanent essential job at 7/11. “My initial five-year plan was to move into this sick studio in Brooklyn until the Manhattan Theatre Club agreed to produce my one-man devised movement piece, but now that MFAs are useless, hot boxing my parents’ garage has never been easier”.
Sasha Stevens, her fellow cashier and an aspiring ‘actress’, had rave reviews after trying her craftsmanship firsthand.
“Dude I’m telling you, it’s like nothing I’ve ever smoked before,” said Stevens, who took a few online courses, but found that the print-at-home diploma paper just didn't have the same effect. “I rolled a J out of the part with the thick fancy lettering on top and I SWEAR, that added texture with the thickness of the paper? Absolute game-changer, man”.
A local dealer, who asked to be referred to as “Sketch,” suspects this innovation in joint construction marks the dawn of a new era.
“Obviously at first I was worried that like, we were eventually gonna run out of diploma, right?” Sketch explained. “But then Erica was all, ‘Ok but what if now we turned my award from the Young Playwrights Festival into a bong?’ and that’s knew that the world, or at least downtown Pittsburgh, was our oyster”.
Erica cited her groundbreaking new discovery as a way that other pandemic higher education grads can make a positive difference for others in a time of unprecedented disease, political upheaval and economic disparity. She plans to continue with this endeavor by going back to school for a PhD.
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