“Honestly, I expected some kind of terrible incident of global proportions. Instead I just spent a wonderful day with my parents”
By IAN COSNER — iacosner@ucdavis.edu
Yes, it’s back and hopefully better than ever! Picnic Day 2022 marks the first Picnic Day in three years, and many students are just brimming with excitement for the holy day. But said expectations are apparently not as righteous as UC Davis administration would prefer. With most of the current student body never having participated in Picnic Day before, the senior class has taken it upon itself to inform other students of as many totally fake true tales of terrible disasters from past Picnic Days. Many would be confused to find that such events have dramatically increased the hype for this year’s picnic. And such, I have decided that it’s time we deduce the source of appeal from this fictitious Picnic Day trash fire.
Many of the sources of such blatant exaggerations seem to have stemmed from Reddit. The UC Davis subreddit has been awash with all kinds of recounts of previous Picnic Days, and, while I’m not legally allowed to credit their validity, I will present to you some of the most popular and counter with what I have allowance to say about each event.
The most popular conspiracies include:
- Picnic Day 2018:
- The marching band accidentally played so loud that they woke up the 100-foot-tall Gunrock clone that sleeps in its tomb under the Death Star, and it tried to recruit everyone to the club golf team.
- Official UCD Statement: Yes, there is a 100-foot-tall Gunrock clone that sleeps under the Death star, and, no, it doesn’t force anyone to play golf. That would be insane.
- Picnic Day 2015:
- The ghost of Linda Katehi came back from the grave and stole all the pepper from the food trucks.
- Official UCD Statement: No, Linda Katehi did not come back from the grave. She is still alive and currently teaching at Texas A&M for an unreasonable amount of money. Yes, she did steal all the pepper from the food trucks that year for reasons that have still been left unexplained.
- Picnic Day 2008:
- The California Aggie released an article joking about a murder mystery happening during Picnic Day, but then all the murders actually happened.
- Official UCD Statement: No, The California Aggie did not release a murder mystery story that came true. The article was actually a mock romance novel about Gunrock and the administrative building Egghead. The two are still currently together to this day.
- Picnic Day 1986:
- The sun stopped working for the day.
- Official UCD Statement: Yes the sun stopped working for the day, but that was due to the fact that a giant tomato covered up the sky and not for any unnatural reasons.
With such believable tales of past Picnic Days ever-present in students’ minds, the internet is rife with speculation for this year’s Picnic Day, and it feels as though the entire campus is holding its breath, awaiting what possible, great calamity will befall the campus. But with such reasonable explanations for such events, it’s still strange that students are expecting some kind of horrible, global disaster to be inflicted this year.
Now to attempt to understand why the senior student body would associate such travesty with Picnic Day is unclear. Being a senior myself, my whole freshman year feels like a distant blur. I have vague memories of forest fires and smoke, men with machetes milling about on campus and bears walking into classrooms. And since all those things actually did happen, I guess the likelihood of someone accidentally awakening Otis, God of Bovine and Weiner Dogs, on the quad doesn’t sound too implausible.
But in all likelihood, what Picnic Day is really going to end up being is a good time where new potential students can get a first look at the next four years of their life, and current students can complain to their friends and family about the last four years of their life. There’ll be cool exhibits, good music and plenty of delicious food. And, who knows, you may just have a wonderful evening on campus. What are the odds?
So I hope you all have a very delightful Picnic Day, from all of us here at The Aggie. Picnic Day is not only a celebration of UC Davis but also of the people that teach, work and attend.
So Congratulations, Aggies! You deserve it.
Oh, and if you happen to cut your hand near the cows, whatever you do, DO NOT let them lick your hand. They’ll get a taste for human flesh, and no one wants a repeat of Picnic Day 2019.
Written by: Ian Cosner — iacosner@ucdavis.edu
Disclaimer: (This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and or names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
