Hey! I am really excited about Homecoming week. Straight up, super excited. And pretty much for one reason: today was the annual Fountain Sit. If you haven't ever heard of the Fountain Sit, prepare to be enlightened.
The Fountain Sit is an annual competition held during Homecoming week. Student organizations are split up into teams for the week, and each team elects one or two representatives to sit in the fountain in Shoemaker Square. That's right. They sit there for a whole day. It starts at 10:00 AM and usually lasts until midnight. Competitors get to answer trivia questions about Southern Miss to get food breaks and be exempt from "punishments," such as sitting directly under the fountain or walking laps on all fours. I will now tell you the tale of two Fountain Sits: this year's and last's.
Last year, the Fountain Sit was record setting. It was cold. Very cold. It was my time to shine. The night before I got dressed in my fountain sitting gear (rain jacket and athletic pants) and took a motivational walk around campus. I came and sat by the fountain and thought about my life. A person has to think about their whole life before they can get in that fountain. It was below freezing at 8 AM when I walked to my Analytical Chemistry class. Brad and I ate a meal afterwards at the Fresh Food Company. I read the paper. It was like any normal day. Except my life was about to change forever.
At 10:00 AM I got in the fountain. It was freezing. We got to sit in chairs for the first few hours. I had already been working in Admissions for most of the year, so I got all the trivia questions right. My teammate wasn't so informed, but I taught him as we went along. Emily brought me some hot chocolate. Tobin brought me some food at lunch. Help from friends is best. Some of the games they made us play in the fountain were ridiculous. We had to play the game "Questions," which meant that we could only talk in questions. I had one question that I kept asking was "has your mother ever been to Georgia?" I have no idea why I kept asking that question. Someone commented on it a few days later. I think the cold got to my head. It was so cold.
At about 3:00 PM we had to take off an article of clothing. I took my long pants off and had shorts on underneath. Once our chairs were gone it didn't matter how many pairs of pants you had on, because it was so cold. By 4:00 PM we were sitting on the bottom of the fountain with nothing but our heads above water. It was so cold. There were only five of us left. At 5:00 PM, one of the campus physicians came to the fountain, made a quick diagnosis, and we were forced to get out of the fountain. We were all showing serious symptoms of hypothermia. It was the first time the fountain sit was forced to an abrupt end. The historic "Fountain Five" all split the points for the sit. I was prepared to stay in the fountain indefinitely, and I was almost reluctant to get out early. It was the high point of my college career.
This year's fountain sit had fewer contestants and the air wasn't quite as cold, but the water temperature was still cold. My main man Justin represented my team this year, and I couldn't be prouder of him. I just received word that he won this year's fountain sit. Props to Justin. He is quite a comedian. He reminds me of his old dad. Er, I'm not his dad. I'm just the guy that did the Fountain Sit before him. There was a dead grasshopper floating in the fountain, and he picked it up and played with it for a while. It sounds crazy, but he was in the best mood and the cold can be blamed for any deviation from sane behavior. Here he is below waiting on a game of Duck Duck Goose. He looks miserable, but his spirits were high and he was a trooper for sure.
Happy sitting, everyone. I'm proud of you, Justin. Countdown to Girl Talk in 3, 2, 1:
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