Life in the Buckeye Epicenter
We wanted to bring something to a OSU/Michigan game party. Rather than cook, an activity so distasteful as to be part of the curse of Original Sin, we decided to bring White Castle hamburgers. Unfortunately a lot of other peeps had the same idea. We waited some 25 minutes for our thirty “sliders”.
While waiting in line we met the pluperfect Buckeye fan. Wide of girth and generous of personality, he was as uninhibited as an opionionated blogger. At one point, presumably to break the silence, he began singing the ol’ Buckeye standard, “We don’t give a damn for the whole state of Michigan…”. A couple of the half-dozen stoic White Castle workers smiled. As did I.
After telling us that he and his friends had all gotten wasted last year when they’d drunk a shot after every good Buckeye play, this year they were planning on only drinking a shot for every Buckeye score. So far nothing unusual in that. But the way to discern this soul as living at the core of Buckeye fanhood is this: He said that his wife was in the hospital and due to be released today, of all days. He told her that he couldn’t come get her because of the game and that insurance would cover another day in the hospital. This seemed patently ridiculous of course. Make your wife stay in the hospital longer than necessary because you’ve got an OSU game to watch? And yet not only did his wife understand but he said that she said, “Oh I love you honey!”
This is one of those (increasingly familiar) “you can’t make it up” moments. It’s like if I put God above my wife and she said “Oh I love you honey” out of admiration for my zeal, even if it cost her.
My wife tried to give him an out: “Well it is the Michigan game after all!” but he would have none of such spiritual lukewarmness, replying that it wouldn’t much matter which State game it was. If you substitute a Buckeye game for God, you see he was trying to protect the honor due his Deity. You can’t make it up...
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