By CORY CATRON
September 23, 2006

[Editor's note: Readers of the online version of this article are advised to print it out first and read a hard copy in order to derive the fullest imaginable satisfaction from the following.]

It seems that the terrible thing about The Crusader, or any other such monument to fine journalism like the New Oxford Review (but not The New York Times -- cursed be they forever), is that once the reader has finished being just that, a reader, he is left with a mass of paper with which there is little he can think to do. I propose a solution to that (although this wouldn’t apply to the New Oxford Review, as it’s a stapled magazine, nor The New York Times, as I simply refuse to touch it).

In the first place, you may turn your Crusader into a fun hat. There is an ancient technique, handed down for centuries from the time of the prophets of old, that allows you to turn your Crusader into several different hats, then a boat, and then a t-shirt, all in sequence (although in those days it was not called a Crusader, it was called a “Random Soldier of Divinely Ordered Holy War”).

In order to perform this amazing stunt, one first must receive all use he possibly can from the words contained within the Crusader -- once you have begun this nearly irreversible process of converting the Crusader into a hat, you will be quite unable to read it any longer (in which case you beat up your roommate and steal their copy, should you absolutely positively need to read that particular issue of The Crusader again).

After one has read one’s copy of The Crusader, one should remove the inner pages, leaving only the outer page (one may repeat this whole process on the inner pages, should one so desire). The outer page already has the first fold one must make in order to convert it into a hat; this harkens to the days of old when hats were first made of newspapers and it was much easier for the publishers to pre-supply the initial crease (easier on the publishers, as they faced riots of medieval peasants who, apart from being terribly inept at folding paper, were also illiterate, and therefore a tad irritable most of the time).

After the initial crease is made use of by folding the outer page into the normal state which one finds it, it is helpful to take the page, folded side up, and fold it lengthwise so that there is now a center line perpendicular to the fold. This is reminiscent of some hugely important historical event that I don’t really care about.

After creating this center line, the corners are then folded to it, so that a sort of house shape is achieved. This is an homage to the ancient readers of the Crusader (or its pre-Christian predecessor, “Random Soldier of Divinely Ordered Holy War: Evening Edition”) because they, unlike today’s dorm-dwelling readers, lived in houses.

When these corners have been folded down, there remain at the bottom two flaps, one on the front and one on the back, reminding the reader of the Ark of the Covenant. I’m not sure of the significance of this, but I’m sure it’s there somewhere. It’s probably not, as I’m making up about 25% of this (only 25%...I swear). These flaps should be folded to their respective sides, the front one folded up toward the front and the back one folded up toward the back.

Once these folds are completed, the reader has attained a triangular Captain’s hat, which was commonly worn by ancient peasants when they attended parties, fraternity initiations, childhood sleepovers, golf matches, bonfires, operas, pelican feedings, murder trials, Scientology audit sessions, powwows, basketball games, torture chamber sessions, class reunions, bar mitzvahs, kindergarten graduations, executions by firing squad, weddings, lightning strikes, Formula 1 races, off-track betting parlors, book burnings, and emergency open-heart surgeries.

The proper way to dispose of the hat once it is past its worth (which ends up being about five seconds after you’ve made it) is to . . .

[THIS INSTRUCTION HAS BEEN DELETED PER THE SAFETY REGULATIONS OF BELMONT ABBEY COLLEGE, THE BUREAU OF ALCOHOL TOBACCO AND FIREARMS, THE SECRET SERVICE, THE UNITED STATES NAVY, THE CODE OF CANON LAW, SEVERAL INTERNATIONAL TREATIES, AS WELL AS THE INSISTENT PLEADINGS OF DR. MARTIN HARRIS.]

Next time, I’ll show you how to invade a third-world country using dry ice, 20 oz. soda bottles, and a wire coat hanger!