We're gonna beat the fightin' texas aggie class of 2010 (whoop) HELL outta..bonfire

First off:

I'm not an angry person. I love mock anger. I use the word pissed to describe anger. This post has to do with one of what I am sure will linger in my mind as one of, if not the, worst college experience I have ever had. This is a little disclaimer to guarantee you that this entry will by no means set the precedent tone for the rest of my blog, it's just that pretty much everything that happens in this story SUX, and it happens to be the first thing that struck me to write about.

So I was feeling redass. Redass is great! It's what makes people stand for hours in the sun in dark maroon t-shirts at a football game while seats are readily available, chug a pitcher of beer with a gold ring at the bottom, hiss their disapproval instead of boo(redass ags are too classy to boo, though not quite classy enough to consume alcohol in moderation apparently), and, among other things, build really large fires that sometimes fall down on the builders during construction. I would also conjecture that redass is inversely proportional to the number of real friends a person has.

I agreed to go to bonfire with Mike Simmons because I was feeling redass that night. We planned to stay for no more than 30 minutes, and figured that with travel time and general delays included, our trip would take a maximum of 2 hours, during which we would have time to talk and snap some pix of the historic tradition to put on our fb profiles. I have prepared a timeline of the night (we actually did time this event but I can’t remember the exact numbers), because I think it will put my anger into context.

7:15pm: Left the house for bonfire

7:35pm: Hit line of cars waiting to park in the auxillary lot (we were among the last to be allowed in, people behind us were told to go home)

8:10pm: Paid $5 parking charge

8:20pm: Got into line for the shuttle (yellow school bus) to take us to the bonfire site. There were 6-7 shuttle busses picking up continuously.

9:30pm: Got on the shuttle hesitantly, because the driver had driven into a wall of vines sometime during the evening as evidenced by the foliage hanging from the bus

9:45pm: Arrive at bonfire!!!!

9:46pm: I use the portable toilet (number 1)

9:48pm: Take pictures/get in line to leave bonfire (we cut about 20 minutes ahead because the people around us were saying they were in line since 9:30)

10:45pm: no movement in the line at all for the first hour. Unbelievable.

10:46pm: massive surge forward in the line (I have no idea why, but we moved 100 yards all of a sudden) that Mike and I exploited to cut even further ahead

11:00pm: We notice that only 2 shuttle busses are taking ALL the people who parked in the aux. lot back. A shuttle comes every 7 minutes. The size proportions were this: crowd is to bus as pillow is to highlighter.

1:15am: Board shuttle to return to aux. parking lot

1:30am: Leave parking lot

after 2am (I got Mickey D’s first since I had not had dinner yet): arrive home PISSED. But mission accomplished:

Closing notes:

1. As you can see, I wore a t-shirt. Yes it was 58 degrees, but why would anyone care when there’s a fire? You should. The line was long enough to stretch far from warmth.

2. This experience is the literally closest thing to hell I have gone through. Masses of people (unbelievers too no doubt jk jk, but the Christian bubble was severely underrepresented) all angry with tons of fire around, and everyone wants to be somewhere else but they’re stuck there for an eternity.