In light of the recent midterm elections, conservative Economics major Eric Wallace is counting down the hours until the dreadful bus ride home to his liberal Massachusetts family. Following the flip of the House of Representatives, Eric feels his stomach clench in fear as he imagines having to actually help with the dishes for once after his family’s annual vegan-friendly “Friendsgiving” dinner.

At Hopkins, Eric is an active member of the College Republicans, but at home he feels the need to downplay his political affiliation at the dinner table for fear of retaliation from his lesbian sister and her nonbinary girlfriend. He frequently wears red polo shirts around campus to express his conservative pride, but this weekend poor Eric will have to remove his MAGA hat for the very first time this semester to hide it from his environmentalist father.

“I can already smell the kale,” a mournful Wallace told the Black and Blue Jay. “My dad always takes me out fishing and lectures me about how the natural beauty of America is under siege from people who don’t recycle or turn their air conditioner off, ever, like me. And then we don’t even fish, we just stand there and look at trees.”

Wallace also dreads the annual tradition of “thankfulness and acceptance” that his family and all their guests participate in. “My cousins are allowed to be thankful for the Keystone Pipeline protestors, but the minute I say I’m thankful for our troops in Afghanistan, I get looked at like I’m a Bush apologist,” said Wallace, who is a Bush apologist. “I haven’t even told my parents I’m straight. Going home is a nightmare.”

Wallace says he is going to miss hosting Ben Shapiro watch parties and prank calling Planned Parenthood in his dorm room, but adds that he’s trying to find common ground with his progressive extended family. “Maybe I can open their minds to my way of thinking,” he said. “If their tolerance doesn’t include tolerance of my intolerance, then I’ll show them 27 Breitbart articles until it does.”

Until his bus leaves this afternoon, Wallace can be found on Q level caressing his MAGA hat and whispering, “I’ll miss you, baby.”