Uh-oh. It's time for college students to prove that we aren't to be trusted. Time to prove that we just might not be bright enough to be in college in the first place. It's spring break time.
I believe that had the founders of our education system realized what spring break would become, they would've judged the high-school diploma adequate for future generations. But they made their mistake, and now we are paying for it with our dignity.
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. So how did it begin? I got your answers right here.
America's first spring break celebration took place in revolutionary times, during the original G.W.'s stay at Valley Forge, Pa., when a group of cold, hungry and tired soldiers ditched out on their fellow minutemen.
Initiating a spring break tradition of irresponsibility that continues today, they deserted this legendary winter of discontent to go south for a warmer climate.
Of course they only made it as far as Scranton, Pa. before they all died of typhoid fever, but it's the effort that counts. Their plan of escaping to warmer weather with the purpose of becoming naked and intoxicated is among the central features of modern spring break.
The first successful spring break road trip took place directly before the Civil War when a group of Harvard undergrads climbed into wagons bound for the Gulf Coast, only stopping once, in Atlanta, to ascertain how and where the players play.
It was there, during the spring of 1850, that a plethora of spring break traditions was formed. For instance, the students established a new market designed to facilitate the exchange of beads for nudity. Back then such business proposals were made more courteously than they are today.
In those days you'd have heard \Pardon me, I wish to view your breasts. I plan to compensate you for their exposure with a string of brightly colored beads. Should this transaction appeal to you, indicate your approval by shouting 'woo.'""
It was decided then and there that spring break should come only once a year, because the South and its inhabitants were really frightening. The tradition of Northerners being unnerved by the strange demeanor of Southerners continues today in the Waffle House locations below the Mason-Dixon Line.
This spring break, though, and the many that followed are a mere preamble to the geometric development of spring break culture in the 1980s.
It was during this time period that America's most morally ambiguous companies discovered the immense buying power of drunk 20-somethings.
The malevolent cultural force that is MTV changed spring break completely with their yearly broadcasts from spring break hot spots. Teenagers across the land saw, for the first time, that they weren't the only ones dumb or stoned enough to want to go on TV with whipped cream covering their privates, then proceed to make out with total strangers beneath a giant Miller Beer sign.
Now let's see what we can do to change spring break for the better. If you're traveling to a spring break destination, please try to exercise some decorum. Our elders already do not respect us, and this behavior ain't helping.
You just never know, if you go too wild, they might cancel spring break all together. And then how would we dispose of all that disposable income?
