Odd SMU Column

[SMU Football Blog]

http://www.smudailycampus.com/media/sto ... campus.com

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The truth as I see it
Polos, zombies and Jeeps
Posted: 9/22/06

Last week, I caught an article about how to have fun your freshman year. It was full of a whole butt load of worthless information about having safe sex and getting out and meeting new people.

As a social shut-in and drug abuser on the verge of failing out, I feel it is my duty to inform you of a few things I've learned in my soon to be six years at SMU.

Joining groups and associations is all good and well if you want to meet other nerds to remind you of how pitifully unpopular your hobby is.

Meet new people? Yeah, I'm sure the SMU chapter of "Dungeons and Dragons" is going to fulfill your college experience to the utmost there, champ.

Better yet, join a team, that way, you can get your leg snapped in half when some fat rugby jerk-off falls on you and you can't go to any of the parties you weren't invited to because you are stuck in a wheelchair.

As a side note, you aren't a first- year, you are a freshman, a fish, fresh meat and we talk about you that way behind your back.

Also, congratulations on that high school girlfriend who came to college to be with you or vice versa. I can't wait until that collapses under the rainbow storm of new and far more interesting people than you.

Might I recommend pitching a reality show based on the awkward realization that the person you thought was the love of your life is in your same dorm, just upstairs, but at the same time completely out of reach because she's strung out on meth and getting love-tackled by the second string linebacker and a defensive end who don't get any playtime.

Catch those tears in a jar so you can sell them to Goth kids on eBay in a pathetic attempt to get something useful out of your imploded love life.

Buy a lot of polo shirts and boating shorts. I don't care if you can't tell a sloop from a yardarm, but Maxim said they go well with Crocs so you'd better load up on Banana Republic, stat.

Wear pink, too. Get a lot of pink and Aviators because according to MTV, that trend hasn't died in a fashion holocaust or been gobbled up by the high school Facebookers who still pop their collars and listen to Chingy.

Seriously, get a new wardrobe because if you don't radically reinvent yourself for college, people are going to see right into your soul, which sucks.

Buy lots of cologne and a Segway so you can escape the flock of girls who chase you, slavering in Pavlovian lust for the Axe body spray, which coats your armpits in a thick musk of masculine-libido TNT.

They might be girls, it's hard to say because their faces are mostly concealed by enormous sunglasses ordered on clearance from the back of a Cosmo ad.

Just be glad they are on foot, the last thing you want is to get run over by a '06 Jeep Wrangler because your bloodcurdling scream was drowned out by two thousand decibels of "Sweet Home Alabama." Imagine that, your last words, the last non-Bridgestone SuperTred to go through your mind, drowned out by an Aguilera pop cover of Skynard himself, featuring Kray-Z Bone.

I would advise you stay inside. We rich affluent white kids spot riff raff by the tan you got working in the fields.

Unless your skin is as pale as driven cocaine you can't possibly hope to make any friends with decent connections in this world.

You do not need friends to enjoy college.

For example, I have a friend, let's just call him Nick Hartley. Nick plays World of Warcraft. He plays so much you can't even believe it and he's got a 3.5 GPA.

He spends his weekends killing goblins and giant bats, and if you asked him nicely, I'll bet he could hook you up with some killer Magic Swords or Glowing Helmets or a cannon that fires exploding Katanas or something.

He couldn't tell you where the busses go to save his life but he can probably kill like a million trolls.

Years from now, when he's working as an accountant or something, people are going to ask him what he did in college.

He's going to roll back in his ergonomic chair, prop his feet on the edge of the cubicle and pour a cup of coffee. Pulling his grilled cheese sandwich out of the George Foreman Grill, he will recount the time he and the Guild of Ultim4te PwnAG3 went back to back and stopped an entire horde of screaming dwarven berserkers or something.

All you can talk about is that time you had sex. Good job, chief. I bet you wished you played more video games now, don't you.

Do try new things.

You can drink and smoke all your life, but college is the only time you can do some drugs, go to Wakeboarding practice and scream in genuine terror as you fly over a sea of leeches. As the giant, evil clown-head that has replaced the sun vomits blood and body parts onto the ground in front of you, you can skate along a pathway of blood-slicked, pulsating organs as you cling desperately to a cracked human pelvis, your understanding of the tow-line.

Drugs make you appreciate the little things in life, like knowing what the hell is happening.

And speaking of living in a bubble, cherish living on campus while you can.

If you've never had a maid, you've got one now and they can and will clean up pretty much anything short of a dead-body if you are nice about it.

Polite is key here, folks. It's kind of like living in a magic castle with a personal cleaning elf that follows you around. Don't believe me? Just wait until Finals week when they disappear and you get to spend the most stressful time of your college career in a stinking mire of your own filth. In case 'living in the trenches' wasn't visceral enough, they also remove the trashcans, causing an inevitable build up of old food, plastic cups and Q-tips which probably poses as a fire hazard, but at that point in the semester nobody really cares about anything, except who has Xanax or Adderall. That's what you've got coming.

There are also fire drills. These are hilarious because everyone has morning breath and nobody has bathed, but the only way to survive is to form a huddle around the fat guy to conserve body-heat.

My buddy Mike Dugan used to just sleep through them, but he dropped out and now he's a drummer in New York, so go figure that out.

Do make an effort to have a bathrobe handy. Nobody wants to see your skanked-out boxer-briefs or the morning wood that could club out a baby seal.

So cherish this year. Score yourself a beneficial friend on a different floor. Study hard. If you're one of those people who "wakes up on Sunday," go for a walk or eat breakfast (The Excalibur of Umphrey Lee).

Be the guy who's friends with the RA and on good terms with the police instead of the kid who burned the popcorn and had a disc of frozen pee slid under their door and ruined all my notes on Introduction to Archaeology and took like four hours to dry, I'm gonna kill you for that, Ryan.

That is my fact; this is the truth as I see it.

[SMUtrojanFAN]

haha, what a weird kid. i seriously cracked up over that article.

oh and that hartley kid really is pretty crazy....freakin' Nor Cal...

[Peruna2001]

I'm glad I left after 5 years. Apparently going back for a 6th year makes you write things like this.

[OC Mustang]

SMUtrojanFAN - where in Orange County do you live?
Newport? Huntington Beach? Laguna?

Just curious. My 7 years there was just splendid.

[MrMustang1965]

Reads like something raplh might have written if he had stayed at SMU too long.

[JesuitPony]

Grass + too much time + laptop = Odd DC editorial

[smupony94]

Reads like something raplh might have written if he had stayed at SMU too long.

Yeah, as a roommate of ralph's for 2 years he is a contender. Oddly enough he and I both graduated in 4 years

[MrMustang1965]

Reads like something raplh might have written if he had stayed at SMU too long.

Yeah, as a roommate of ralph's for 2 years he is a contender. Oddly enough he and I both graduated in 4 years

Is it raplh or ralph? Which is it?

[SMUtrojanFAN]

SMUtrojanFAN - where in Orange County do you live?
Newport? Huntington Beach? Laguna?

Just curious. My 7 years there was just splendid.

Actually, born and raised in Fullerton (home of the perennial...??...baseball National Champion Cal State Fullerton Titans). My girlfriend, who was a pi phi, lives in Laguna Beach. We actually met in Dallas though, and now live in Orange County again. It's great, but we both miss Dallas a lot. Where were you in OC?