I'm not sure about the rest of campus, but around Lakeshore, the kids in Short Course have a wild reputation. For them, college was a 16-week vacation from the farm, and they loved every minute of it.
My friends would complain about their trucks roaring out of the lot at all times of the night, blaring their country music and their less-than-sexy tractors. But really, I liked them. They were generally nice guys who knew how to have a good time.
But the week Short Course graduated, they wore on my nerves. On a Tuesday night, there was a young man marching around the parking lot for an hour screaming, toga, toga, TOGA!"" which confused me because he wasn't even wearing one. Thursday someone installed a novelty horn and tested it for six hours straight. I like ""The Dukes of Hazzard,"" but no one likes it that much. So, come Friday, I was ready for a little revenge.
My friends and I were people-watching Friday afternoon. The Short Coursers had a game of volleyball going. We're not sure what happened, but there was some guy lying in the middle of the court not moving. Everyone was just playing around him, but he had been completely still for a full five minutes now, and we were debating whether or not to call the paramedics.
The sound of laughter from the parking lot caught our attention. A man was standing in the back of his pick-up, with a small crowd gathered around.
He seemed to be telling a story, his arms waving around frantically. Then, the man bent down and picked up something large and metal. His crowd burst into cheers. Then he slipped whatever it was in back into his truck bed.
I turned to my friends. They knew our mission before the words were out of my mouth. It was a giant road sign; shiny, beautiful and soon to be ours.
We waited until night fell. We dressed all in black with sassy stilettos so we could feel like spies. There was a basketball game on, so there weren't a lot of people around. We crept outside, and in a series of tuck-and-roll maneuvers, made our way to the truck.
We had underestimated our target. From the window it had looked manageable, but up close it was five feet-by-five feet and was far more challenging than we had expected. We tried to move it, but the three of us alone could barely budge it, let alone run it to the safety of our secret lair, a.k.a under my bed.
We scurried back to the dorm. We needed assistance, and we went to our friend Kale. Fortunately, he had fully recovered from his skirmish with the werewolf on our previous expedition and was ready to help.
We hurried back outside. People were slowly filtering out of their dorms now. Our diversion had been the UW-Davidson basketball game and, as we all know, it wasn't much of a diversion. We skipped the tuck-and-rolls and headed straight for the truck.
Kale leapt into the back of the truck and heaved the sign out. We grabbed it and made a mad dash for the dorm.
I can't say we were very sneaky at this point; we were running around with a sign that was almost taller than some of my co-conspirators, and we were laughing like lunatics. We bolted up the stairs to my room to bask in the glory of our treasure.
It said ""Rough Road."" That's it. No ""Speed Hump,"" no ""Spoonwood Blvd."" not even ""Slow Children at Play."" The thrill of the adventure was wearing off, and we realized we were now stuck with the task of hiding a five-by-five sign in a 10-by-12 room.
Instead of just putting the sign back, it is now safely tucked away in an obscure, secret location.
I've warned my parents to bring bungee cords to strap it to the roof when it comes time to move me home, but haven't explained to them exactly why we will need the extra precautions. For some reason, I don't think they are going to like this story as much as I do.
Megan is debating whether to continue this column next year or pass the torch. E-mail your opinion - either way - to Megan at mcorbett2@wisc.edu.
