TALLAHASSEE - Having given up on winning tomorrow's game (or any game) and deciding things would be best if the parents just didn't see this edition of Airborne, the football team skipped town to visit the site where Duke last scored an upset victory.
Or at least 11 or so upset stomachs.
Sure they may have lost that fateful game back in September 1998 on a dreary evening here by, oh, 49 points, but the Blue Devils struck back, heaving their viral troubles onto 11 of their opponents. So they were gone, roaming the streets of Florida and hoping to revisit the site of their glory past and possible future victims.
And, like the dutiful prognosticators of football fortunes that they are, the GridPickers jumped at the opportunity to follow the football team, knowing darn well noone else in the country would ever again trail the Blue Devils anywhere.
Harold "those box-lunch turkey sandwiches really upset my" Gutmann was angry this story turned to discussions of vomiting and virus transfers.
"It's not like it hasn't been easy enough for you guys to make puke jokes about my name," he said. "But you didn't have to go and frame your story around spoiled food just so you could justify your wise cracks."
After a triumphant resurgence into GridPicks title contention following an incredible 17-3 performance last week, Steven "t-" Wright "stories are my specialty" celebrated his comeback with an extension of the almost-dead financial long-range planning series. And of course a bucket of chicken wings (we thought we'd add another plug to see if Steve's kind professor who offered to chip in some wings last week would actually come through this week).
Much to the dismay of Chronicle readers everywhere, Wright decided to continue the series for the rest of the semester, meaning the few faithful still capable of picking up the paper would have to glance at his byline and skip ahead to the one section that counts.
"I don't think you guys understand the future significance of this series," Wright said. "Maybe noone cares right now, but one day I'll go down in history, like Columbus."
Kevin "my constant ass-kissing is keeping me emp-" Lloyd was the first to start feeling ill from the still-Airborne virus that was swapped in Tallahassee more than two years ago. He asked to see trainer Dave Engelhard, but Engelhard refused without giving any reason why. Perhaps he was too busy with the strenuous and over-burdening tasks of a trainer, whatever those are.
Norm "the athletic department plays me worse than Milton" Bradley wasn't able to make it to Tallahassee. He was still traipsing around Durham trying to find anyone (I mean anyone, student or not) who would buy the unsold tickets to the Illinois basketball game.
His presence was most dearly missed by the collective members of Team Girl, who had hoped to exchange a few favors for seats to the UNC game. Andrea "I swear upon the Good" Bookman "I would never do anything like that" was desperately trying to avoid the dreaded virus, which would do nothing but bad things for a happy romance just past one year. Sarah "innocent until proven" McGill "ty" and Jenny Robin "the cradle" son, meanwhile, were wondering who was mysteriously left off their four-person team (sorry, Jaime, lack of creativity intervened here).
The remaining eight GridPickers-from Andrew Greenfield "of dreams" to to Neophyte of the week "I a-"Paul- "ogize for the multi-colored vomit on the floor" Doran to photography stud Regan "I will definitely" Hsu "if anyone gets vomit near my car" to all the unnamed Grid Pickers-were stuck in the infirmary after contracting the E. coli bacteria from rivals from the FSView who decided not to wash their hands before using the keyboards on their computers. At least the GridPickers knew they were in good hands, so to speak.
- By that group that used to sing, "Yackity, Yack." Hey, don't talk back.
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