I love when Madison rallies and we all come together for justice and peace and love and the people and everybody's smiling and chanting and crying and you get that ""One for all and all for one"" kind of funky feeling.
It's uplifting. Enlightening. It gives you one helluva sensational high. Like most good highs, though, you come down eventually to a bitter, not-so-great, kind of crappy, fuck-this-fuck-that-and-fuck-you state of being. I'll admit, I got that rush in my blood when I saw all the people in the land coming out of hibernation, all with the same goal. But, it's day 20 of protests at the Capitol, and I've never felt so damn sober in my life.
My sleeping patterns are off-kilter; I feel like I have hip dysplasia from all the walking and my parents are threatening to put me down, and worst of all, I'm beginning to hate EVERYONE.
I love that the Wisconsin constituents are here to show their support, but in all seriousness, if I get stuck waddling behind one more group of sauntering, stroller pushing, disoriented, suburban families on the way to class, I'm going to flip my lid.
But at the same time that all of the unions are in town fighting for their rights, every high school is here too, competing for a state title in some pointless sport that nobody cares about. It's those pre-teen fucks mobbing the sidewalks with their butt-pad toting parents that really piss me off.
Every time I walk out my door, I see Mike McLettersweater and Gabby Gumsnapper from high school and their entourage of 14 zit zombies with bad hygiene and no sense of public presence. They're tripping over their untied shoelaces, peacocking their pitiful athletic accomplishments with big furry letters on their chest and getting in my fucking way.
What's worse is their presence here coincides with my third personal favorite holiday, just behind April Fool's Day and Cinco de Mayo: Mardi Gras. How am I supposed to make it to the bar promptly for a dozen rounds of grape, lime and orange Jello shots if every time I turn the corner, I bump into a large group of slow moving globs of sober high school obesity.
What's the fun in buying/earning beads if the only color the city has is orange and all the beads are in the shape of tiny aluminum basketballs? And they won't get you free drinks? No, thank you.
The ample amount of time I've been stuck sauntering and hovering back and forth behind groups of slow out-of-towners has led me to discern that out-of-towners truly have a complete lack of discretion about the fact that they don't live here. Let's just settle a few things once and for all.
1) State Street is not the only street in Madison. Stop crowding.
2) The new Sunshine Daydream on State Street is not ""good old liberal, hippie Madison."" It's fucking lame.
3) I realize you're probably staying in the shit-basket Red Roof Inn out by the beltline, but that does not give you the right to act like a psychopath just because you're downtown.
4) I am not an alien; I'm a college student. Staring is rude.
Overcrowding in Madison has certainly gotten the best of me. The fact of the matter is it's highly unlikely that things in Madison will slow down until summer. And there's nothing that beats summers in Madison (except maybe summers in Madison with bacon).
The city is fantastically empty. Imagine a Madison with no cackling Diet Coke-heads waddling in their high-heels from bar to bar. A Madison devoid of pervy bros with pit stains who chant in small groups while walking down the street, and where nobody, and I mean NOBODY, is ""fist pumpin' like champs.""
That's the Madison I anxiously anticipate each spring semester.
Spring Break appears to be a sweet vacation from the overcrowding. Everyone in Madison will be gone. Unfortunately, I didn't realize early in January when I booked a flight to Panama City Beach, which is likely to be one of the most crowded places in the nation during this coming week, that there would be a straight month of massive crowds everywhere I went.
Not that I'm complaining. I think nice weather might change my attitude on crowds. Bring on the body odor.
E-mail Stephanie at slindholm@wisc.edu with your own stories about the droves of pre-teen angst converging on State Street.
