For most people, I would imagine that Christmas, Thanksgiving and maybe Easter are the biggest holidays of the year. What with the family togetherness, the food, the gifts and everything else that comes with these special days, who wouldn’t be excited? For children, days such as Halloween are pretty big as well. But if you are a McDaniel College student, you know flat-out that the most important day of the year is Spring Fling.
It’s the one day a year where people eagerly wake up early. The one day a year where people throw aside all sorts of work and responsibilities. And it’s the one day of the year (I truly hope, or so help me God) where us college students get giddy and excited to go jump on bouncy houses and inflatable obstacle courses.
Quite frankly, for many it is a inexplicable day of bacchanalian gallivanting, outdoor imbibing and the consumption of fine spirits. I do not know how this trend was started or why it caught on so strongly, but the fact of the matter is that every student, from his or her first day on campus at McDaniel, somehow inherently knows about Spring Fling.
Whether or not I condone this amount of binge drinking and unruly behavior, the facts are clear: people drink a lot, and people think it’s cool.
For those who have never experienced Spring Fling, they see it as a magical, mysterious entity bigger than life itself. It is an awe-inspiring unicorn of a day; it is like seeing a leprechaun; it is like being sprinkled with magical sunshine dust and wrapped up inside the world’s coziest rainbow and then dipped in a warm vat of holy cream sauce. The unlucky cleaning crew that empties the trash rooms of our residence halls Monday morning will be shaking their fists in anger for hours on end, cursing the glory that is Spring Fling.
As if the typical activities of this day weren’t daunting enough for the authorities and administration, this year Spring Fling falls on another mystical day, the origins of which I also do not understand: 4/20. The powers that be that planned this must be kicking themselves. Let’s take the biggest day of the year for recreational drugs and combine it exactly with McDaniel’s must anticipated Saturday. Brilliant.
While most, I would hope, do not plan on allowing for the combination of these two days to justify ill-advised behavior or unsafe actions, it would be silly and ignorant to say that this day will not be, at least partially, an utter train wreck. When students aren’t spontaneously napping, uncontrollably vomiting or eating junk food ’til their stomachs burst, you can expect to see people, to some degree, outside around various campus straight up having a blast.
Despite the widespread abuse of the elements this weekend, I have full faith that my fellow college students will know how to handle themselves and not go overboard. So drink your drinks, jump on some inflatables and listen to the live music (whoever that band is), but above all else, enjoy yourselves responsibly.
Spring Fling: where we fling Springs.
