Ann Arbor is a Whore
Sort of.
This weekend several of my friends and I trekked to Ann Arbor, Michigan to support Ohio State in their last football game of the regular season. If you are unaware of how big a rivalry Ohio State vs. Michigan is - you must have been living in a cave all your life.... on Mars. We proudly don our Fuck Michigan shirts sold to us by shady street vendors every year - how else will others know that we believe Ann Arbor to be a whore?
At Ohio State we have a slew of school sanctioned events that comprise "Beat Michigan Week." The university fully encourages us to, well, hate Michigan. Many of us even spell it M*ch*g*n because it is such a foul word. Hell, Woody Hayes (who, by the way, is from my hometown, Newcomerstown, Ohio) would only refer to it as "that school up North."
Before Nick, Sab, Tim, Tingley and I headed up north, we first of course, had to jump in Mirror Lake. Why, would anyone in their right mind, jump in a lake at 12am when the temperature is a "balmy" 22 degrees? If you ask any average Ohio State student, they will all tell you the same thing - I don't know. It's just what you do the Thursday night before a Michigan game. We're in college. We're dumb. (Sidenote: if you really do want to know why we jump in Mirror Lake, check out this article from our god awful school newspaper - The Lantern. God, I hate The Lantern.)
So frenzied is our celebration at Mirror Lake, it usually costs the university anywhere from 10-30,000 dollars just to clean it up. Not to mention all the diseases in this so called "lake." But hey, whatever, college students are indestructible, 30 grand is a pocket change to our school, oh, and as a bonus, it's a nice little Fuck You to the environment.
Anyway, Friday arrives and we load up Nick's Jeep Cherokee to head "north until you smell shit, and west until you step in it." Funny thing about a Jeep Cherokee:
This does not seat nor sleep five people comfortably.
How do you deal with such close quarters on a 4-5 hour drive? Well, you don't drink a case of beer in the car, I'll tell you that much. That would be both irresponsible, dangerous, and illegal.
Pee on Michigan
This weekend several of my friends and I trekked to Ann Arbor, Michigan to support Ohio State in their last football game of the regular season. If you are unaware of how big a rivalry Ohio State vs. Michigan is - you must have been living in a cave all your life.... on Mars. We proudly don our Fuck Michigan shirts sold to us by shady street vendors every year - how else will others know that we believe Ann Arbor to be a whore?
At Ohio State we have a slew of school sanctioned events that comprise "Beat Michigan Week." The university fully encourages us to, well, hate Michigan. Many of us even spell it M*ch*g*n because it is such a foul word. Hell, Woody Hayes (who, by the way, is from my hometown, Newcomerstown, Ohio) would only refer to it as "that school up North."
Before Nick, Sab, Tim, Tingley and I headed up north, we first of course, had to jump in Mirror Lake. Why, would anyone in their right mind, jump in a lake at 12am when the temperature is a "balmy" 22 degrees? If you ask any average Ohio State student, they will all tell you the same thing - I don't know. It's just what you do the Thursday night before a Michigan game. We're in college. We're dumb. (Sidenote: if you really do want to know why we jump in Mirror Lake, check out this article from our god awful school newspaper - The Lantern. God, I hate The Lantern.)
So frenzied is our celebration at Mirror Lake, it usually costs the university anywhere from 10-30,000 dollars just to clean it up. Not to mention all the diseases in this so called "lake." But hey, whatever, college students are indestructible, 30 grand is a pocket change to our school, oh, and as a bonus, it's a nice little Fuck You to the environment.
Anyway, Friday arrives and we load up Nick's Jeep Cherokee to head "north until you smell shit, and west until you step in it." Funny thing about a Jeep Cherokee:
This does not seat nor sleep five people comfortably.Upon immediately arriving in Michigan, Tim and Tingley realized where they were and what they had to do
Pee on MichiganWith that formality out of the way, we continued into Ann Arbor and searched for a place to set up tailgating shop for the night. Here's a little tip for you tailgaters out there - never pay to park in a tailgate lot. As the woman working in the lot told us - drive in after the workers leave and they can't do a damn thing about it. Suck on that Michigan. We were afraid of having to spend money in Michigan and thereby supporting their economy, but thankfully, this chick clued us in.
So anyway, we were expecting to have shit thrown at us from every side up in this new surrounding. We were greatly outnumbered, and had been taught for ages that this is the land of pricks. So, how did these folks treat us come 4am, when Nick and I deemed festivities in the lot should begin? They fed us, gave us liquor and beer, and kept us warm. They were, by and large, hospitable in every way that one could be.
I was as shocked as you are.
Imagine, all the learned hatred we have for these people, this mindset that fuels tons of merchandise sales a year, simply did not appear to be true. Son of a bitch. It was like finding out the Nazi's really just took all the Jews to a Club Med and pampered them.
We will have a lot of memories from our weekend in Ann Arbor, the stripper who stopped by; keeping warm by starting a fire in a trash can; me thinking I wasn't allergic to seafood anymore, then graphically finding out I, in fact, still was; the adventures of Abe Yoder; bum after bum coming by to take our cans for the 10 cent deposit; the OSU folks next to us who decided to come up on a whim while at happy hour the day before; and, of course the many antics at a certain small town McDonald's on the way out.
But I think what we will remember most, next to the Ohio State win, is the kind hearts of a bunch of fellow college football fans who just happened to be rooting for the other side. Which is why before we left, we raised our drinks and toasted to these fine folks, damned if they hadn't been good to us.
Except the bitch who told me I could take my flag back to Ohio and shove it up my ass. What a whore.
So anyway, we were expecting to have shit thrown at us from every side up in this new surrounding. We were greatly outnumbered, and had been taught for ages that this is the land of pricks. So, how did these folks treat us come 4am, when Nick and I deemed festivities in the lot should begin? They fed us, gave us liquor and beer, and kept us warm. They were, by and large, hospitable in every way that one could be.
I was as shocked as you are.
Imagine, all the learned hatred we have for these people, this mindset that fuels tons of merchandise sales a year, simply did not appear to be true. Son of a bitch. It was like finding out the Nazi's really just took all the Jews to a Club Med and pampered them.
We will have a lot of memories from our weekend in Ann Arbor, the stripper who stopped by; keeping warm by starting a fire in a trash can; me thinking I wasn't allergic to seafood anymore, then graphically finding out I, in fact, still was; the adventures of Abe Yoder; bum after bum coming by to take our cans for the 10 cent deposit; the OSU folks next to us who decided to come up on a whim while at happy hour the day before; and, of course the many antics at a certain small town McDonald's on the way out.
But I think what we will remember most, next to the Ohio State win, is the kind hearts of a bunch of fellow college football fans who just happened to be rooting for the other side. Which is why before we left, we raised our drinks and toasted to these fine folks, damned if they hadn't been good to us.
Except the bitch who told me I could take my flag back to Ohio and shove it up my ass. What a whore.
