1. We are redoing our kitchen. You have to walk on cardboard all the time.
  2. My parents are crazy.  You would not believe the things they say. Trust me, you’d rather stay in New Haven.
  3. We have dogs. Are you ok with dogs? Your clothes are never that hairy, so I feel like you don’t have dogs, which leads me to believe that you will most likely be allergic. And my dogs have long hair. I’m not talking about a Shiba Inu or a pug, I mean like real long hair. A real dog’s dog.
  4. The guest bedroom shower only has cold water.
  5. The guest bedroom closet is full of my mom’s clothes.
  6. Thanksgiving is on a full moon this year. That creeps me out. Does it not creep you out?
  7. I’m most likely going to be doing a lot of work over break. I’m worried that your expectation is that we’ll be doing a lot of hanging out, but really it’s going to be like I’m at school. It probably wouldn’t be that fun for you, you would probably end up in the guest bedroom just watching Netflix the whole time while my parents watch Fox News downstairs.
  8. It’s a bad idea because you would be over for dinner.
  9. Sorry, you would be over for dinner.
  10. My parents are werewolves.

— S. Leone

(To be absolutely clear, the intention of this piece is not that a student has werewolves for parents and, for this reason, wants to spare their good friend’s life. Rather, this is written from the perspective of a very normal student who doesn’t like their friend very much and is not very good at making up excuses)