COLUMN: BEEP! Maybe I should start wearing a toga
Today’s new word of the day is “frore,” a Middle English word meaning “so bloody cold I will never emerge from under my goose-down bedding until August or summer, whichever comes first.”
But seriously, I never signed up for this major frigidity. I do not recall ever signing a petition to bring more snow into my life … well, wait a minute, I guess there was that one night when I don’t remember much of anything except seeing eight empty pints of Jamaican Rum, my best friend hunched over a toilet, and for some reason a toothbrush the size of Marv Albert. But surely I never requested this hyperborean climate.
I bet my neighbors laugh whenever they see that “giant kid from Virginia” lumbering around campus bundled up like a confused Eskimo. I just wish I had a dog sled with accompanying canines to haul my 839 pounds of textbooks and me up the hill in the morning. I suppose though, that if only one person comes close to losing consciousness from falling down on the ice, laughing so hard at me, my antics are worth it.
The winter weather highlights of my return to Logan thus far have been tackling the giant snowman on the Quad, falling down five times trying to ascend Old Main Hill, and of course wondering why I even bothered to come back. However, nothing beats the countless hours spent laughing at the fact that the school spent a month making a new walkway in front of the Taggart Student Center which is now conveniently covered in eight feet of snow.
Holiday travel to and from this frozen tundra hasn’t been easy during a code orange terror alert, or what is now metrosexually known as code tangerine, as brought to my attention by those funny fellows from “Queer Eye for the Terror Alert Code Making Guy.” It is especially hard getting through all those pesky security checkpoints at the airports.
When I was a kid I never made metal detectors go off, ever! But now that I’m full-grown I’ve become one of those guys – you know who they are. “Come on through, sir.” BEEP! Time to remove my shoes. “Now come on through, sir.” BEEP! Time to remove my watch. “Let’s try it again, sir.” BEEP! Time to remove my glasses, ring, belt and miscellaneous, balled up, metallic wrappers in my pocket. “Well sir, fourth times a charm?” BEEP! What the hey, I’ll go through naked this time. “Sir, at least use this gray container as a shield so you don’t frighten other people with your unusually reflective, white body.” BEEP!
Confused and humiliated I turn around and see a little bratty child with a large guilty grin on his face and some sort of electronic beeping device in his hand. But I can’t do anything to the kid because now I’ve been grasped by the guys with the noisy batons who think I have something hidden inside my body cavity.
Ever notice those batons have my name on them? I think that’s why they never find anything on me, even if my arms are extended like a “T.” Finally I get through security and suddenly, like a major fall down a staircase, I figure out that code tangerine alerts must be sponsored by the nail clipper industry, because for some reason I seem to have to buy new ones wherever I go.
I had an awesome Christmas Break spending time with family and friends in the desirable warm climate on the East Coast. It’s too bad I got the flu, so instead of binge-eating fatty foods like a villain, I spent most of the time in bed, except the few occasions when I meandered downstairs for a short jaunt to relieve sinus pressure.
Spending way too much time indoors, I was consigned to watching my brother’s DVD collection, which ranged from “XXX” to “Daddy Day Care.” I guess when you’re sick, your immunity to bad movies dramatically degenerates until the point when Ebert and Roeper seem like nitwits, and all you have a desire to watch is something with explosions or mass amounts of dirt, because anything is better than having the flu during Christmas.
Luckily, I’m healthy and have made it back to Logan, so now can I spend my time doing useful things like trying to figure how to look at the cool new 3-D Mars Rover pictures without aid of those funky blue and red glasses. Too bad I didn’t get any for my birthday.
By far the best part about being back is hanging out with my friends John and Blaine (you’re welcome John) whom I’ve determined to affectionately call Weasel Puke and Lamington Head. Hopefully soon we’ll have some new and great adventures, assuming I make it through the frore of January.
Garrett Wheeler is a graduate engineering student but for some reason still has trouble operating the remote control car he got for Christmas. Any tips or suggestions can be sent to wheel@cc.usu.edu.