It was a spring day like any other on the UW-Madison campus. The sun was shining, the snow was melting (and freezing again) and the birds were nowhere to be found-they had the foresight to study abroad in Mexico. I was my usual self, walking back from class-tired and thinking of the delicious mocha high that would bring me through yet another day.
No stranger to the passing-time bustle of a crowded university, I thought little of my fellow students briskly passing me on the sidewalk, slinking and squeezing by as I slowly ambled to a destination apparently much less urgent than their own. A city bus rumbled by to my right, packed with students either too lazy or worn out to hoof it like myself. The bus stopped somewhere behind me, and a mad sprint for a free ride broke out immediately before me.
As the bus' rabid throng dashed by, dangerously close to knocking me off my sluggish path, I spotted a most peculiar and terrifying sight: a young man running to catch the bus... with a rapier in his hand. Yes, the sword.
It was quite a sight-a young man my size, racing down the street with his coat strewn over one hand and a 17th century combat blade in the other. It was as if an evil Errol Flynn had come back from the grave, about to cut me in half for daring to impede his frantic scamper.
Thankfully, I was spared fatal truncation at the hands of the sword-wielding maniac. \Had the French finally invaded?"" I wanted to cry out after him, ""Was a cryogenically frozen Napoleon Bonaparte finally making use of his secret Quebec military installations?""
Before I could grab my blunderbuss and join him in the first (and only) Franco-American battle for Lake Mendota, the frenzied swashbuckler boarded the bus, leaving me dumbstruck in the middle of the sidewalk wondering if all the cheap pink champagne had finally rotted my brain. Frozen, I watched the other students on the sidewalk continue on their un-merry ways, as if Sir Lancelot hadn't just waltzed by.
The oddest thing about this incident is that it is far from isolated-several times have I casually strolled down a Madison street only to cross paths with an armed student, brandishing a kendo stick or a battle axe or a saber.
How do people get busted by police for walking around with an open can of Pabst on a Friday night in this city when we have psychos with swords running around? And what degree program are these kids involved with that they need to carry a sword to class? Medieval Combat Studies? I'm waiting for the day when two mounted knights meet on Bascom hill and joust to the death.
Perhaps I'm just jealous -with my luck, the first time I'd try to pull a King Arthur on my way to class, four squad cars and an FBI SWAT team would swarm in and end my crusade. Either that, or everyone would make fun of me for being that ""huge dork with the sword.""
Since the police seem to be entirely ineffectual in protecting citizens from feudal warriors, I've deduced that the only way to defend myself is to equip my blunderbuss, Franco-American War II or not.
I'll give them a little military history lesson on why the sword is no longer used in modern warfare.
