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Davis, California

Tuesday, March 26, 2024

Stay Classy

“Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son,” says Dean Wormer in Animal House. Just because you’re an adult in the eyes of the law doesn’t actually mean you have to act like it. Okay, yeah, maybe mooning strangers on I-80 and flashing the vajayjay sign in your holiday greeting cards is not exactly model behavior, but it can be stupidly entertaining and really fun.

I’m sure at least some of you are shaking your heads with mucho disapproval at my lack of criticism in regards to such antics. Fact: Everyone has done something immature in their lifetime. Even your Financial Economics professor.

I must confess that hearing about blink-182’s reunion last week made it seem like the sky was bluer and the birds were chirping louder. It took me right back to seventh grade, you know, when kicking someone in the shins was a sign that you were way hot for them and inhaling Wite-Out was just a way to pass the class time. These guys are the masters of immature. Not everyone with a wife and kids on the side can get away with streaking, but Mark, Tom and Travis freakin’ do.

As a freshman at Davis, I once asked a wise old fourth-year where the weirdest place he’d ever woken up in was. After a minute’s thought, he said he once woke up in the bushes outside the Co-op, went to class, borrowed a pencil and took a midterm. God bless college.

Town elders may disapprove, but what is immaturity if not a lifestyle choice? The entire basis for Old School was a bunch of old dudes who decided that they wanted to relive the glory days of stands, both the keg and one-night variety. Rest in peace, Blue.

If the guys of Old School and blink were chicks, their antics just wouldn’t be the same. Blast. Ridiculousness is just another one of those things that guys tend to pull off with slightly more flair, but it doesn’t mean a girl can’t try.

I remember when one of my high school friends came to visit during spring quarter of my freshman year. I was proudly showing off my bruises from just another crazy night where I attempted to climb a few fences when she had to throw in that she would never do something like that because she was a lady. Ladies are supposed to drink tea and crochet scarves and wear pearl necklaces. It was that last comment that compelled me to take her on a tour of Urban Dictionary.

There’s hardly anything left in the English language these days that cannot be linked so some sort of sexual connotation or innuendo. Nobody drives by a BJ’s Brewhouse without at least thinking something dirty. I can’t even take a yoga class without laughing at the fact that there’s a position called “down dog.” And now that everyone’s saying, “That’s what she said” and cracking up like there’s no tomorrow, there are just times when it seems like we’ll never grow up.

That’s what’s so glorious about college. It’s like being sealed off in a delightful little bubble that just harbors immaturity and encourages it to grow. It’s a place where making bongs out of plastic bottles with your friends could be the norm as opposed to somewhere back in your hometown, where you’ve probably got high school classmates who are, like, married. And working full-time jobs. With kids. This goes to show that while we might be the same age physically, our mental capacities are nowhere near that level.

That’s not to say that we’re not capable of being mature when the need arises. Like at family reunions, when you don a tie and beam as your grandmother divulges that you’ve always been her favorite and you’re really gonna be someone. These are the prime days of fun. Get away with what you can while you can. Very few people are allowed to act childish for a living and if you continue to do so past a certain age it’ll just be sad. So sing in cars, dance on tables, set off shitty homemade fireworks in parking lots and run like hell when you see a cop cruiser.

There will come a day when our bosses no longer humor us when we show up to work smelling of substance. When there will no longer be people willing to walk down the street with you wearing a toga, devil horns or blingy skankwear. But until that day, viva la vida.

MICHELLE RICK knows darn well that you can’t be old and wise if you’re not young and stupid first. Hit the marick@ucdavis.edu to tell her the weirdest place you’ve ever woken up.

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