It's Bucket Week

It's that time of year again, when the two biggest universities in Indiana meet for their annual de facto bowl game.  This Saturday, the 3-8 Purdue Boilermakers will load up the team pick-up trucks and "carryin' pigs" to leave the permanent stain they call home and travel 110 miles south to Bloomington -- a town where the sun actually shines -- to play the 3-8 Indiana Hoosiers for the Old Oaken Bucket.  The carnage will be televised live at Noon Eastern on the Big Ten Network.

This season has been somewhat of a disappointment for IU, as starting QB Nate Sudfeld sustained a season-ending injury in the first half of the sixth game, followed by a season-ending injury to second-stringer Chris Covington that same week, which forced the Hoosiers to go with third-string, true freshman Zander Diamont for the final six games.  Needless to say, the Hoosiers' 3-2 start and victory over #18 Missouri in Columbia seems like eons ago.  The lone bright spot for the Hoosiers has been junior running back Tevin Coleman, who is currently second in the nation in rushing yards and needs 94 more yards to become the 18th player in FBS history to eclipse 2,000 rushing yards in one season.  He has been held under 100 yards in only one game this year, and has broken the 200-yard mark four times and the 300-yard mark once.  My sincere hope is that he becomes the third running back in the last three weeks to break the NCAA single-game rushing record.

The season -- and life in general -- has been even more of a disappointment for the Boilermakers, who, after every game, must return to the acrid, dungeon-like confines of West Lafayette.  Things are so bad for Purdue that, even when they win, they are confused about the difference between up and down.  Then again, what do you expect from a glorified two-year technical college whose main claim to fame is generations of sanctioned bestiality?

I make no secret of the fact that I hate Purdue.  I went to IU.  Purdue is IU's biggest rival.  Ergo, I hate Purdue.  Frankly, I can't see a reason why anyone would like Purdue.  It's a rat-infested ag school located in the worst college town in America, where the percentage of women with unibrows is unparalleled, the men have acute fecophilia, everyone listens to Nickelback, and no one wipes sufficiently.  If you looked up the word "misery" in the dictionary -- a book you cannot find in West Lafayette, mind you -- you would see a photo of Mackey Arena, a building that has been home to as many NCAA men's basketball championship teams as the outhouse in Matt Painter's backyard.  If you looked at the photo a little closer, you would see eight male students breathing from their mouths in front of Mackey, wearing dip-stained, piss yellow sweatshirts one size too small, circled around a horse-faced coed with eczema on the muffin tops that spill over her the fragile elastic waistband barely keeping her sweatpants from exposing the skid-marked tidy whities covering her humongous vagina, trying in vain to form their thoughts into words so they "kin vite'r t' th' barn dance," which takes place in the Purdue student union, which is an actual barn.

Daughter, Lollipop, and I will be attending the game this Saturday, along with my dad.  When I told Daughter that we were going to be going to an IU football game, she asked, "What team are the Hoosiers going to play?"  I replied, "Purdue."  I kid you not, she then asked me, "Is it going to be stinky?"  She's not even five years old, and she knows that Purdue fucking reeks. 

I told her, "Well, it will be in Bloomington, so it won't smell bad, but one corner of the stadium will smell like a strange combination of rancid bratwurst, fried lard, and your brother's diapers after he eats yogurt." 

"I don't want to smell Purdue," she said as scrunched up her face and waved her hand in front of her nose, like one does when they encounter a Purdue fan. 

To calm her down, I explained, "Don't worry, sweetie, we aren't going to be sitting near them."

"But what if one of them comes near us?" she asked, with innocent fright.

"They'll probably try to say something, but you won't understand it because they speak an odd dialect that sounds like a combination of redneck and Pennsylvania Dutch, but rest assured, they are just looking for some food to gnaw on or a bucket to shit in.  That's why we carry these."  I showed her a bag containing several cubes of raw pork fat.  "If any Purdue fan comes near you, you just throw one of these on the ground and walk the other way."

"Daddy, I don't ever want to go to Purdue," she said.

As a tear rolled down my cheek, I replied, "You won't have to, sweetie, not even if they offer you a full ride, on account of your white teeth."

Here's to hoping we don't encounter too many Morlocks while we're in Bloomington and that IU keeps the Bucket where it should be.  Go Hoosiers, fuck Purdue, and Happy Thanksgiving!