So we’ve all seen Rob Biederman’s egg-hunt email. It got us to thinking…what if the USG reconceived every important holiday? A few ideas:
Ash Wednesday: You and a group of friends attend 8 a.m. mass. After applying the soot, a priest holds a mirror to each of you, intoning, “All but one have received the sign of the cross, a symbol of the crucifixion, a remembrance of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ…but on the forehead of one lucky churchgoer lies a mark in the shape of an IPOD VIDEO, to be redeemed at USG headquarters in Frist for a token which, when swallowed, causes the winner to vomit up a real black IPOD VIDEO.”
Halloween: Children are instructed to stay inside their homes throughout the evening. One in every ten hears a gentle rap-rap-rapping on the door, and upon its opening, Rob Biederman and the rest of the USG appear, dressed as ghouls, proffering tokens. Each lucky Halloweener is thrown into the back of an unmarked van and driven to USG headquarters, and the apple bobbing begins…but of course, at the very bottom of the basin, hermetically sealed and greased so as to foil all but the most concerted of efforts, lies a new black IPOD VIDEO, preloaded with seasons one and two of the American “Office.”
St. Valentine’s Day: You awake one morning to the sound of shattering Crush bottles—everywhere people are breaking them open, on the walls, on the floor—they are hurling them down staircases and against the windowed backside of Frist itself. You discover that Rob Biederman and the USG have hidden a tiny slip of paper in one out of every ten…and when taken to USG headquarters, the slip entitles the owner to Seven Minutes of Heaven with the entirety of the U-Council…and whoever makes it out alive has a one-in-five chance of winning, what else, a red-and-black IPOD VIDEO, loaded with the entirety of U2’s pre-2006 catalogue.
Flag Day: The air is filled with the strains of patriotic hymns; the mountains resound, the sun gazes benevolently upon this great nation—all eyes are fixed on the Stars and Stripes, that flag which (heroically, ceaselessly) flew above Fort McHenry…for the first time in nearly two hundred years we raise this great beacon of Democracy, and yet, just as twelve Marine Corps veterans and their pre-school-aged children are unfurling the cloth, out pops Rob Biederman and the rest of the USG, holding five tokens to five new red-white-and-blue IPOD VIDEOS, cached in various historical locales—Mt. Rushmore is an obvious example—and so, by the Fourth of July, five lucky Princetonians are rocking out to Audioslave whilst fireworks rend the sky… Earth Day: The seventh-grade auditorium is thick with the stench of Axe—you await the start of the Earth Day play, in which your sort-of girlfriend plays the role of Ozone Woman…she has practiced her lines for weeks, and yet…as the curtains rise she is standing there with eyes as wide as saucers. She’s forgotten everything! But at this very moment, before Ms. Chisholm can run to the stage with a cue, Rob Biederman and the rest of the USG burst into the back of the hall, reminding everyone that the Earth is a precious thing, that it is ours to protect, and that all in the audience ought to check below their seats, for one in every ten has been randomly selected to win a romp in the eco-friendly ball pit now located at USG headquarters—and of course, whoever emerges first from that great tangle with the three interlocking tokens (representing Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling) has a one-in-twenty shot at a brand-new hunter-green IPOD VIDEO, preloaded with Sting’s most recent album, recorded in a Yanomami settlement along the Amazon.