Tuesday, March 24, 2009

costumed anarchy

as some of you know, i went to THE george washington university. don't ask me why they always made a big point of the "THE" - they just did; i think it had something to do with our inferiority complex with georgetown and probably also how we were always just outsidethe top 25 or 50 universities in the country. obviously, being THE george washington university shows what a classy school we are. we referred to our school as gee-dubbs, dubbs and one friend recently said to me, "oh, you went to G Triple-U!" that last one is pure gold.

the reason i am thinking about this is because i am caught up in march madness. my school failed to even make it to the A10 tournament this year. why, in my day, we at least made it to the tournament. c'mon, it's the A10, people, not the ACC. i mean, we're in the same league as st. bonaventure bonnies. the bonnies? ooh, that's intimidating. if any of my old dubbs buddies reads this, was it a bird? st. joseph's was the school that had the eagle looked like an oil spill victim and continuosly flapped it's wings.

this kind of musing of course led me down memory lane. see this guy? it's george washington, our faithful mascot for the george washington colonials. yeah, colonials - that's not even a noun, man. that's just the grammar nerd side of me coming out. anyway - take another look at george. note his beady eyes and blank gaze. terrifying.

let me tell you about me and george... my senior year, i had a column in the school newspaper. if you googled me, you'd be able to find the articles. this is how i got the column: my roommate's boyfriend was the op/ed editor, and he said, "hey audrey do you want a column in the paper?" and that was that. so i basically what i write on this blog got printed in the newspaper every other week.

during our basketball preseason, i came up with a list of rules for george, so that we could fully enjoy the game. and yes, this ran in the paper:
1.) Don’t touch me.

2.) I’m trying to watch the game. Please don’t stand in front of me waving your arms, sit next to me, behind me, or anywhere in my bleacher section.

3.) Don’t touch me. I mean it.

4.) I have a grasp on the game of basketball, as do most of the other fans, I’m sure. It’s a little demeaning when you’re screaming into a microphone telling us when to cheer. We know when the team is doing well or doing badly. We will react accordingly.*

5.) Feel free to crowd surf. I’m not guaranteeing that I’ll hold you up, though. See rules 1 and 3.

6.) More giveaways! We Dubbs students love free stuff.

7.) Did I say don’t touch me? I’ll hurt you.

If you follow these rules, then we can all enjoy the game a little bit more. Plus, I won’t have to see if I can put my fist through George’s plastic head. Okay, so I’m a little sensitive.

* ed. note:#4 was in reference to a new addition to games: "superfan" a student in a wig and shades that was supposed to get the crowd fired up. which consisted of him mainly yelling into a mic to stand up. i hated him. throughout the column, i called him superdork. supergeek, etc. shortly after this column came out he was fired. which was not my intention at all. i'm not even really sure how much my article had to do with his demise, but i certainly didn't help him. i felt kind of bad, but not for very long.

so people laugh and we move on... a few weeks later, we're in the dining hall watching gw play on espn in maui invitational. my friends and i are at a table by the window sort of studying for finals. the invitational was kind of a big deal, so the pep band was there, and cheerleaders and probably free food. my friends and i are goofing around and then out of the corner of my eye, i see something looming. GEORGE IS THERE. hands on hips, staring me down. look at that picture again. TERRIFYING. my friends are just about peeing themselves, they are laughing so hard, but i have curled up into the fetal position. he reaches over and just barely touches my arm with his index finger. and then he left. no words were exchanged beyond my initial, "what the hell?..." and trailing off into whimpers. see, george doesn't talk, and it's top secret as to who is George. i think that years from now, i will get a letter for a friend of mine in which he confesses that he was the one who tormented me. you see, this was not an isolated incident. GEORGE came up to me at some point during EVERY GAME that season. he would just stand there and stare at me. sometimes coming really close to touching my arm, sometimes not. every time i would be rendered speechless and my friends ate it up.

sometimes i still wake up in the night screaming. that's not true. i already had a irrational mistrust of mascots (see: any of the characters from chuck e. cheese establishments,especially the purple monster, mr. munch. seriously.). now, i am openly hostile. actually that is not true either, because once stomper the elephant, the a's mascot plopped down on my lap during a game and i was reduced to gasping wordlessly. is there a support group out there?


*** in more current news, it looks like the anthology i submitted an essay to a long long time ago, is going to be published. end of the summer perhaps. so that's pretty cool. i found out when i was sulking a few weeks ago so i kind of played it off. i'm still learning to not to do that so much. i'm excited to see what the finished product looks like. a nice surprise in this uncertain time.

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