March Madness

It's official; I have fallen off the face of the earth.

I have not watched a single men's college basketball game all season. I haven't even seen one play. When I found out that K-State was a 2-seed in the tournament, I was sure that couldn't be right. I mean, Michael Beasley went to the NBA and took any chances at competitiveness with him, didn't he?! I heard Mizzou had made the big dance and was even more surprised. (Sure, I am a fan, but I am kind of a Mizzou fan like I am a Royals and Chiefs fan; you hope for the best and expect the worst. It helps you to avoid heartache and disappointment.) I did know that North Carolina finished last in the ACC and is playing the role of "wallflower at junior high dance" this year--no chance of getting in the action. But I only know this because a good friend at Oxford bleeds powder blue and has lamented that the world is just not as it should be. I have tried to keep people equally informed about the Drake sports world, but strangely no one was excited (other than me) when the Drake men's soccer team made it deep into the NCAA tournament. (Maybe because their respective home universities didn't have men's soccer--due to Title IX, which is a whole different post--but I think it may be because they still couldn't locate Drake University on a map of the US. No, Miss Teen South Carolina, this inability isn't caused by an absence of maps...And if you don't know what I am talking about, go to YouTube and search for Miss South Carolina.)

Today, I am going to a BBQ (sigh of anticipation) which will feature Gates BBQ sauce--straight out of Kansas City; right in the middle if you can't place that on a map.

(Ok, as an aside, I have become increasingly jealous of people from Michigan. I mean, you ask them where they are from and right on cue, their hand-map pops up and they point right to where they are from. Here people ask me where I am from and I just go with, "Right in the middle." to which the common response is either, "So, not the east or west coast (brow furrowed look of puzzlement)?" OR "Wait, so in the north or the south?" To which I explain that I mean the literal MIDDLE. I even resorted to the man in the middle picture (with someone from the US)--where MN is the hat, IA is the face, and MO is the body. Yeah, about that...)

Back to the BBQ, there will also be basketball games there. Pretty exciting stuff. But I am actually nervous about it--nervous that I am going to like all of this too much, that the madness will suck me in. But I am pretty interested to see if they do "three cheers for (the opponent)! HIP-HIP-HOORAY, HIP-HIP-HOORAY, HIP-HIP-HOORAY." I am guessing that this trend has not caught on just yet.