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University Of Michigan To Attempt Scandal-Free Season
Ann Arbor, Mich.— In an unprecedented, unexpected, and inexplicable display of self control, players, coaches, boosters, and fans of the University of Michigan all eked out an impressive six first football games this season without any apparent cheating, scandal, or bribing.
Big Ten officials are scratching their heads in amazement at this brazen display of obedience on the part of the university that has traditionally seen itself as above all rules and regulations. Fans are euphoric and can almost taste a scandal-free season, so much so that boosters have constructed giant gold star stickers and affixed them to the east entrance of Michigan Stadium for every game successfully played scandal free. So far, six giant stars shine as proudly as the victors valiant themselves for all fans to see as they enter the legendry stadium across from Crisler Arena, the famous basketball stadium where the renowned “Fab Five” rose to acclaim before being expunged from all official record books despite Chris Webber’s demands for a timeout.
“They should have just awarded him an extra timeout,” said longtime U of M fan Jason Ventrillio of New Baltimore, Michigan. “He’s Chris Webber, for heaven sakes, and if he thought they needed another timeout, then they don’t give enough timeouts in college basketball. Period. Instead of penalizing him, they should have immediately fixed the problem.”
Above the south entrance of “The Big House” is a sign that states, “This stadium has gone __ games without a scandal.” In the blank is the number “6,” and after each game, students partake in the newest U of M tradition of flipping to the next integer.
U of M fans and students eagerly, yet somewhat anxiously, await turning the number to “7” next Saturday after this week’s bye and hope against hope for a perfect twelve-game, scandal free season.
“At that point getting into a bowl game would be of secondary importance,” said U of M student John Schaunlew. “We will have accomplished something few other Michigan teams have ever done.” Schaunlew hopes to graduate this spring and attends every home football game.
-The Editors
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Father Accepts Grave Responsibility Of Informing Son That Life Is Not One Big Joke
Warren, Mich.— A local father resigned himself to fulfilling his duties and informing his son that life ought to be taken a bit more seriously.
Throughout most of his childhood, Timothy Schwartz has lived a blithe and jocular life of relative ease. Although Schwartz has occasionally become upset over not getting his way or getting grounded, most of the time he takes the most serious recriminations given him and makes outrageous and hilarious jokes out of them.
“Nothing is sacred with him,” said a frustrated John Schwartz, Timothy’s father. “He just doesn’t understand that not everything in life will just come to him with no effort. He has it too easy, and his mother and I are doing him no favors by letting him sit there like King Tut in the lap of luxury while I work twelve-hour shifts just so that he and his friends can go out and waste their time mocking every conceivable thing they encounter. He has no responsibilities, no real bills or worries, and he needs to wise up and quit cracking jokes about everything. The other day he was fooling around in the kitchen with the milk carton, and I said, ‘Tim, knock it off! I don’t want the milk all over the floor,’ and he replies like a little smart aleck, ‘I wasn’t planning to put it on the floor.’ I almost thrashed him right then and there.”
The Satirical Rogue was unable to procure an interview with Timothy because he insisted on speaking in a Middle Eastern accent for the duration of the phone call and maintained that he didn’t speak English.
John Schwartz plans to sit down with Timothy “one of these days” and inform him that life is not, in fact, one big joke.
-The Editors
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Man Cannot Get Theme From NES Bases Loaded Out Of Head, Nears Delirium
Armada, Mich.— Toby Bailey, a thirty-five-year-old waiter, has reached a point of desperation after years of failing to extract the continual repetition of the Bases Loaded theme from his head.
Bailey asserts that, had he known the song would haunt him all these years, he never would have played a game of Bases Loaded, the once-popular video game for the eight-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. Bailey claims to have played the game for hours, whistling along to the song, going through entire seasons just so that he could win the World Series with his beloved Detroit Tigers who just couldn’t seem to finish the job after ’84. “Bum bum ba bum bum, bum bum ba bum bum,” hummed an almost tearful Bailey dutifully, “ba baaaaa, baa ba ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba ba ba, ba ba ba, ba ba ba, baa ba ba ba ba—BALL FOUR!” Bailey suddenly screamed, looking around in desperation as though hideous monsters were going to spring out of the walls at any time and tear him limb from limb. He then began whimpering and continued with the song mechanically. Angst and years of torment etched themselves in every line in his forehead as he beat out the final licks of the song, producing beads of perspiration before jolting everyone again with, “HOME RUN!” and then beginning to simulate the whistling crowd noises as he celebrated the imagined run in a paradoxical moroseness.
Bailey claims that he has tried playing the game to alleviate the obsessive replaying of its tune after formerly trying to go years without playing it, but the song has never left him. He has tried replacing the song with others by forcing himself to hum the themes of Tetris, Blades of Steel, and Tecmo Bowl, all hits of the NES gaming console, but all to no avail.
Bailey blames his inability to hold down a steady job, his failure to find love, and his absence of happiness on the video game malady and has contacted an attorney to determine whether grounds for a lawsuit against the video game manufacturer are warranted.
-The Editors
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Roller Coaster Rider Responds To Attendant’s Question “How Was Your Ride?” Unenthusiastically
Sandusky, Ohio— Employees and fellow riders were shocked by Jeremy Bartlett’s defiant, sullenness when he and fellow roller coaster riders were asked how they enjoyed their ride.
Bartlett and a small group of friends had made the trek to Cedar Point for some late-season roller coaster fun this Wednesday and were systematically working their way through all the major roller coasters. They had just finished riding the Magnum XL200 and were rolling into the station to disembark when the red-and-blue-jumpsuit-clad attendant exclaimed loudly over the loudspeaker, “Welcome back Magnum riders! How was your ride?” Customarily, the riders would cheer, releasing any pent-up excitement from the rush and adrenaline of the ride as well as electrifying the awaiting riders, but as the riders cheered, several in the vicinity of Bartlett noticed his mysterious and brooding silence.
Julie Villarreal, the attendant on the platform at the moment became so flustered when she caught sight of Bartlett rolling to a stop that she was barely able to give out her instructions to the incoming riders of how and where they were to exit. “I looked back at Ben [the attendant at the controls] and he just shrugged at me dumbfounded. We weren’t sure how to continue because up until that point everyone we had ever seen come in was either cheering jubilantly or screaming in terror, but [Bartlett] just sat there with his arms crossed, looking stonily forward as though he had never been more bored in his life.”
When Villarreal hesitated, those in the train immediately began sensing something was wrong. Horrified whispers began buzzing around the platform as people wondered how to unbuckle themselves and get the bar off their laps without instructions. Several people began panicking, and one woman fainted. Soon, eyewitnesses allege, people were screaming and stampeding for the stairs which were peopled full of patrons who believed their dispatch to be imminent, but soon, hearing rumors of broken tracks and collapsing platforms, began shoving past those behind them for the safety of the general concourse. By the time everyone had cleared out, several semi-conscious people littered the platform and stairs. By this time, claim witnesses, even the attendants believed something was dreadfully wrong and had run for their lives, clawing past women, children, and the elderly, and screaming for others to save themselves. When EMS and Cedar Point rent-a-cops arrived on the scene, Bartlett remained in his seat with his arms folded, staring straight ahead. Other than those passed out in their seats, he was the only one left on the train.
Authorities remain baffled about why Bartlett appeared so dour when arriving at the station and claim that as soon as they commanded him to exit, he obediently unlatched his lap belt and was careful of the rising bar before standing up and exiting to his right and looking for his picture available for purchase. Rent-a-cops and real police officers failed to find any infractions to charge Bartlett with, although they did ask him to leave the premises if he wasn’t enjoying himself instead of spreading his stinking funk to other patrons.
-The Editors
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Vermonter Claims To Have Begun Black The North Face Fleece Trend
Burlington, Vermont— Nevaeh LeBlanc, a thirty-two-year-old mother of three claimed that it was she who started the hot trend of young people wearing a black The North Face fleece from the first sniff of a chill in September through the last semi-cool days of May.
LeBlanc claims that in her prep school in Vermont, she was known for her always wearing a black fleece even before wearing a black The North Face fleece became popular. She said that it was “pure coincidence” that it was The North Face and that she had originally asked her parents for a black fleece from Nautica, a popular purveyor of fleeces during the nineties, but that her parents, sensing the shift downward in Nautica’s popularity years before it became apparent to the general public, went with a The North Face fleece instead. “Of course it was black,” said LeBlanc, “since that was the only color fleece I wore. It was mostly because it went with all my outfits and because it had kinda become my thing. Well, when I was a senior in ninety-seven, some of the underclassmen girls started wearing them too, and by the end of that winter, everyone at our school was wearing them. Then, this lame school from Enosburg that always tries to copy us saw us wearing them at the football games and started to wear them. I guess it just spread from there.”
LeBlanc added, “I have always thought [the The] North Face [company] should pay me a few million. I know I’ve made them plenty of money—at least as much as most celebrity endorsements make these companies.”
Executives at The North Face declined to comment on the veracity of LeBlanc’s claims or on whether or not they intend to offer her remunerations for her launching the company’s fleeces to the must-have item on most high school and college campus across America.
-The Editors
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Man Nicknamed “Fathead” In College Found To Have A Fatter Than Average Head, Former Roommates Exult
Muncie, Ind.— Aaron “Fathead” Williams went to the doctor complaining of headaches only to have the years of hateful teasing by his old roommates confirmed with this diagnosis: he has a fat head.
Aaron went to a small Christian college where he studied for the ministry despite his roommates’ constant persecution. “They would whip me with belts and shove me into the laundry baskets, and sometimes they would throw all my bedding into the hall,” said a wistful Williams. “I always tried to be a good sport about it though, and I think that might be what drove them to continue. We had this six-foot-five Lithuanian kid in our room who had a head shaped like Herman Munster’s, and he would stomp around the room informing everybody about the reality of life in downtown Chicago. I don’t really know what he was trying to accomplish, but he sure swung a nasty belt. He is now an elementary school teacher.”
Williams began complaining to his wife of headaches this summer until he finally made an appointment to see his family physician this past week. He never expected the diagnosis he was to receive when his doctor informed him that he is perfectly healthy but that he suffers from an extremely fat head, a non-life-threatening condition with the main side effect of eliciting mockery. Fathead said, “The doctor came into the room and looked at me with a serious face and said, ‘Aaron, you have a fat head.’ Then he started snickering until he got it together. I thought he was kidding, but he said there was no known cure and that I should just deal with it.”
One of Williams’ roommates, Joe Schueler, said, “I feel vindicated. When I first laid eyes on him, I knew he was a fathead, and this only serves to confirm what I already knew.”
-The Editors
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