I'm from Minnesota, but I was born in Milwaukee. I spent my youth there until I moved to the suburbs of St. Paul. I have always been a Wisconsin sports fan. I have always cheered for the Pack, even through the times I thought Anthony Dilweg should've replaced Don Majkowski. I have an unhealthy affinity for cheese and beer, which gets me in trouble with the Madison police when I try to hock the cheesy beer that I produce and can myself. (Apparently, you need something called a \liquor license"" in Madison. Fascists.) I even registered to vote in Wisconsin ever since media whore Jesse Ventura decided to bring his greasy frame to Minnesota politics.
But there is something I ally myself with Minnesotans, aside from having the Mall of America and the unending happiness that we're not in Iowa.
It's called pop. It's duck, duck, gray duck. And it's a drinking fountain.
Ever since I've come to this campus, I have been linguistically oppressed by the Wisconsin intelligencia on this campus. And where are the protesters? Where's the opinion column, defending our freedom of speech? Where's Bono and his blue-tinted shades singing a song on our behalf? I have been refused a pop many a time on this campus by friends and foes alike because I have used the word pop, yet there are still oppressive forces on this campus.
Me: Can I have a pop?
Culver's Employee: It's a soda.
Me: Yeah, whatever. I'd like a pop please.
CE: Not until you say soda.
Me: Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
CE: Get out of my Culver's!
Now I haven't played ""Duck, duck, GRAY duck"" since I was a lad of nine, playing with my Battletoads action figures. But it is GRAY duck. No, I don't know what a frickin' gray duck is, but trust me, that's the way God intended us to play it. And you Wisconsin folk never cease to amaze me how many times you bring it up in a conversation with no provocation.
Me: So I was reading this interesting article back home in Minnesota about snake handling as a religion, and I...
Father Sullivan: You know, it's duck, duck, goose, right?
Me: Gray duck actually.
FS: GOOSE!
Me: GRAY DUCK!
FS: Get out of my church!
So after being expelled from a Culver's'I don't know if it's that one only or the chain as a whole'and the Roman Catholic Church, I needed a nonalcoholic drink. So where do I go? To the DRINKING FOUNTAIN of course. Why is it a drinking fountain? Because it's a fountain, and you drink from it. You don't water from a drinking fountain, and you sure as hell do not bubble from one either! What in the name of high school football is a Bubbler? Does it bubble? No, it flows smoothly through the reservoir. No bubbles! No bubbles at all! Bubbler is not even not even a real word! But you folks still insist on calling it a bubbler.
Me: Hey, can you tell me where is the nearest drinking fountain?
Gov. Scott McCallum: It's a bubbler, actually.
Me: Hey, listen Governor, I don't tell you how to cut money from the budget and you don't tell me what to call a drinking fountain.
GM: BUBBLER!
Me: DRINKING FOUNTAIN!
GM: GET OUT OF MY STATE!
While many will be licking tequila off a friend's torso next week, I'll be sipping a pop in Minnesota, the land to where I've been exiled. I do love UW-Madison and hopefully I'll be able to return next semester. All I have to do is re-apply and I'm in!
What's that? What do you mean they stopped admitting people? ASS!
