2008 Woodie Awards
The Deserted Bandwagon
MATT KUNZWEILER
Issue date: 3/30/06 Section: Features
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I ended up in the Bahamas for spring break. And it was everything I could've hoped for: more high-fiving than an ADP party, more sunburns than the early days of British colonialism. Everybody (and I know I'm prone to hyperbole, but seriously - everybody on Spring Break) was wearing Polo shirts, Polo shorts and sandals. Although this branded homogenization was a pastel parody of itself, it raised a question: Do people who wear only Polo complement each other's clothes? Because it would sound like this:
"I like your shirt."
"Yeah, I know. There were like four colors to choose from, but I think I made the right call."
"Especially by coordinating it with those periwinkle shorts. Which are dashing."
But what do these Polo-clad children say when drinking on a beach in the Caribbean? I actually heard one frat boy shout: "Raise the roof!" His sunburned companion - an avid weightlifter, and judging by the following comment, an avid degenerate - responded, "Raise the roofie!"
As they high-fived, I frowned and hid my margarita beneath my beach recliner- just because, in the eyes of a sun-drunk, mohito-drunk and testosterone-drunk frat boy, I, with my longish locks, might somehow appear female. Not that I even look like a girl - or, by any stretch of the imagination, an attractive girl - but I was reading a novel on the beach, and only chicks do that, right? Anyway, the beer goggles on these frat boys were so foggy and Coke-bottled that I assumed these "brothers" capable of drugging and violating anything they could get their sandy hands on. I'd already seen one violate a coconut… Believe the stereotype: state school frat boys are savages.
Later, at the Isle of Capri Casino (which sounds more like a Wham! song than an actual casino) I was cashing out a triple-7 jackpot on the 25¢ slot machines, the metal trays clanging obscenely with the barrage of falling quarters. As I scooped the winnings into my plastic cup (I'd never seen $100 in quarters before), I fervently shouted to the room (and two hundred hidden cameras): "These are the loosest slots in the Caribbean!"
"I like your shirt."
"Yeah, I know. There were like four colors to choose from, but I think I made the right call."
"Especially by coordinating it with those periwinkle shorts. Which are dashing."
But what do these Polo-clad children say when drinking on a beach in the Caribbean? I actually heard one frat boy shout: "Raise the roof!" His sunburned companion - an avid weightlifter, and judging by the following comment, an avid degenerate - responded, "Raise the roofie!"
As they high-fived, I frowned and hid my margarita beneath my beach recliner- just because, in the eyes of a sun-drunk, mohito-drunk and testosterone-drunk frat boy, I, with my longish locks, might somehow appear female. Not that I even look like a girl - or, by any stretch of the imagination, an attractive girl - but I was reading a novel on the beach, and only chicks do that, right? Anyway, the beer goggles on these frat boys were so foggy and Coke-bottled that I assumed these "brothers" capable of drugging and violating anything they could get their sandy hands on. I'd already seen one violate a coconut… Believe the stereotype: state school frat boys are savages.
Later, at the Isle of Capri Casino (which sounds more like a Wham! song than an actual casino) I was cashing out a triple-7 jackpot on the 25¢ slot machines, the metal trays clanging obscenely with the barrage of falling quarters. As I scooped the winnings into my plastic cup (I'd never seen $100 in quarters before), I fervently shouted to the room (and two hundred hidden cameras): "These are the loosest slots in the Caribbean!"