I know I'm really tired when I find myself rocking out to "Les Miserables" (International Cast Recording). Of course, before this I was conducting the soundtrack to "Last of the Mohicans," and prior to that was the "That Thing You Do" CD.
As I review my deteriorated mental state, my mind wanders back over the events of the past 12 hours.
I closed the desk last night. After 11:00 p.m. rolled around, I made my way to Stankowski Field where the event was based.
Upon getting there, I was immediately escorted to the Honors Learning Community tents, and informed I needed to buy some glow-in-the-dark necklaces (we'd bought 100 and still had a lot left over despite the fact it seemed everyone at the campsite was wearing one).
I walked and talked with friends. I bought slightly overpriced food in the name of giving to charity. I picked up some cheap freebies in the rationale I had been giving to charity.
I had a good time, but knew I needed to get up early in the morning, so I was all set to leave at 2:00 a.m. this morning.
That's when things got interesting.
A friend had a fake ZZ Top-cut beard. He was joking that the beard made him look like a lazy bum. He lumbered awkwardly, and when he came across someone, he'd crazily spout, "Gackety ake ake wagd tuby ag Wah! Wah! Grubidy yaa," and other giberish. Every so often he'd throw in coherent words like "The Government!" or "Potato Salad!"
That was funny enough by itself, though my description doesn't do it enough justice, but soon we were to up it a notch.
Scrounging around the campsite, we put together an outfit consisting of a the brown beard, black sunglasses, a camo rain coat, a Hardees ball cap, and a plastic garbage bag. He looked the Vietnam vet/bum Steve Buscemi played in "Big Daddy."
First, we had him go after Hatch people, but that wasn't enough. We wanted him to harass strangers, but he was a bit too cautious to want to do that.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your point of view, we encountered a drunk honors student who had no qualms about doing it.
The next thing we knew, he was staggering around the track, with us trailing him.
To let you know more about his state of mind, he was part of the a group of people who were earlier exclaiming, "We're living the dream! Whoo!"
To which someone deadpanned," Yeah, I can smell it all over you."
It was strange how much credible the "tramp" appeared with genuine alcohol on his breath.
He hadn't gone 100 meters before he spotted the Jazzercise group doing aerobics. He ceased his jerky stutter step and sprinted toward the group.
Soon, he was positioned in the front with his trash bag flailing through the air as he did jumping jacks.
After exchanging looks that said, "Is he really doing this?" (promptly followed by looks that said, "Oh crap, he is! And it's hilarious!) we had quite a show as the intoxicated guy tried to keep pace with the complicated directions.
He did pretty well considering. More than once he his reaction was noticeably a beat behind the group. Everyone would kick left as he was still kicking right. Each new set of commands caused him to pause briefly before moving on.
His coordination got worse and worse. Between gasps of breath and howls of laughter, we speculated on how hot he must be feeling (my raincoat is a good insulator, and he had that on top a jacket covering another shirt) and how the Hatch people who he was exercising next too kept pausing to laugh as well.
At one point, he was so drained, he just stood in the midst of the group, beard pulled down, and panted.
He picked up his garbage back, which he discarded part way through, and started moving toward the row of Sorority Girl tents.
That was one of the original goals to work up to, but it soon became obvious, that was asking too much.
Our first guy made a big production of putting stuff in his bag and returning it when asked what he was doing, but our drunken recruit seemed confused about his directions.
"But he told me I was supposed to steal stuff!" he whined when we tried to straighten him out.
With that comment, we knew it was time to decommission our hobo.
He had someone put their arm around him so he wouldn't stray toward the other sorority girls. Part way around the track, we stripped him of his accoutrements and went on our way.
Getting back to Hatch, we found the emergency Blue Light, which people can use to alert MUPD, had been vandalized.
Someone pulled the top, shaped like a the lights on top of a squad car, off and took it with them.
As we were busy paging the student staffer on call, who went about calling MUPD, two kids walked in with a bike saying, "Look at what we found."
They drug in a bike with a bent front wheel, saying they found it in the street and that it was the best find they'd ever had.
At that point, I knew it was time to go to bed.
There's one other story, but it's not mine to tell. My friend Stephanie has a wicked cool story that I won't lessen by paraphasing it. You can read it by checking out her blog. It's been long featured on this site (or about as much as I can "feature" anything on this page) and if you haven't checked it out before, today is a good time to start.
After reading the story, now I know why the Boxer cries out "I am leaving, I am leaving," but the fighter still remains.
Note to Steph: Sorry. Couldn't help myself.
Note from 2005: Serious, read the story and see the Art Garfunkel get whats coming to him.
Anyway, my time is about up and I have to go.
The French Revolution is about to begin and I wouldn't want to miss it.
'Yes_I_hear_the_people_sing_singing_the_songs_of_angry_men'
