Hey gorgeous,

Did you know life is a beautiful, precious gift that should be cherished at every moment?

Yeah, didn’t think so. 

It’s March after all, and our mental capacity as students are dwindling but alas, the horrors persist anyways. 

This column has admittedly seen better days. Though, I will say it’s nice to see you on the back page for a change with a marginally bigger word count to play in, it does mean that I have to keep yapping to fill it. It is not lost on me that I may, (allegedly) (some might argue), have lost the plot from my editorial many issues ago that saw the birth of this silly little column. 

Perhaps then, it is only appropriate that I return to my roots and the origin of Gator’s popularity and re-introduce myself to the masses as the (not so) Secret Editor. 

You see, I have this strange delusion where I think nobody knows who I am and I am simply another NPC walking under the veil of an anonymous student. To a certain extent I am sure this proves true … at least I hope so. I don’t presume that the random “I-only-read-smut” English majors know that the person next to them in class sporting a black trench coat with boygenius stickers on their MacBook is one of the two straight Arthur editors dodging lesbian allegations left right and centre. Certainly my giant “YOUR MOM READS ARTHUR” slapped against my laptop and alludes to nothing.

To be honest, my academic career is rather lackluster and depressing in comparison to my Arthur endeavours, so I do hope that I am able to sit quietly enough in the back corners of seminar rooms and relish in this strange sort of double life, ten slack messages per minute be damned!

This is to say that I am a very private person who doesn’t like attention but unfortunately talks too much and also has her face posted around various parts of campus and littered within this paper. Can such a girl be both mysterious and perceived? The jury is still out on this one.

Pack it up Hannah Montana! I am the only woman with bangs ever. 

If anyone has had the pleasure (?) of conversing with me within an academic setting, please know that I am suffering from a chronic case of Stockholm Syndrome which leads me to mention my employment at Arthur without fail no less than two minutes into any conversation with a stranger. I could lie and say I have a very rich personal life, but I am writing this on a Saturday in the Arthur office, so you be the judge of that.

Though my author page doesn’t reach nearly the numbers my co-editor, Evan Robins’ does, it is safe to say that from my editorial in August in which I was employed at Arthur for all of eight months—five of those taking place in the summer—I have become more well known that I would like to admit. 

I have, despite my best efforts, been recognized while riding the bus.

Now that we have begun to tear apart my neurosis (I’m a double Aries, btw) and established that I am literally just a girl, (Virgo rising) we should move onto why you’re really here: it’s time to talk about Gator.

If you have not read my editorial titled “Notes From the Secret Editor”, I recommend you do so not for anything related to myself, but the Gator lore is far and deep and my poor jokes might land better if you are caught up. 

Gator, for those of you who have not yet been blessed, is my fat orange cat. At eight years old, Gator has managed to fill the Arthur inbox with flailing fans and captivated mentally ill women (such as myself) with the same force one might ascribe to “Beatlemania”. He is, after all, a fat fruity cat in the hands of burnt-out students. When writing my introductory editorial as the least-known editor among my colleagues, I suffered a debilitating case of “imposter syndrome” and promptly forgot everything about myself to instead use my emotional support little guy™ as a crutch. As fate would have it, he was a hit. 

First things first, readers need to understand that I am simply a vessel for my fat orange little guy and everything I say within the confines of this column should be attributed to him and not used against me in a court of law or taken seriously by my professors and/or potential romantic suitors. 

We have already established Gator’s namesake, his relation to Wattpad fan fiction, seen Gator fan art, his desire to commit grand larceny, and gone dating in this hell of a city all alongside Arthur’s feline-in-residence, and yet somewhere along this journey, the plot (if it was ever there) was lost. Blame it on the moon or blame it on the author not knowing what the hell she is writing at any given moment, but I felt it was due time to go back to the beginning with this column in pretending we are meeting for the first time. 

If we are meeting for the first time: Hi! Hello! Thanks for reading this far. You may be wondering what happened in my personal life to have this sudden change of heart and pure, unfiltered hatred for everything I have ever written. All you need to know is that “Casual” by Chappel Roan has been my most played song this year and no, I don’t want to talk about it.

For the majority of you who do not care about the inner-workings of this sad, (un)known editor, I have what you came for and I won’t hold him hostage any longer. 

For further Gator inquiries and complimentary Gator pictures, please contact editors@trentarthur.ca with the subject line “LET ME SEE THE BOY”.