(This article appeared in the 4/5/04 joke issue)As many of you have heard, the Penn Quaker died late Saturday night. He was planning on leading a parade supporting Penn sports teams during Spring Fling when many students would flock to support him, but Penn Athletic Director Steve Bilsky informed him that his parade would be rescheduled until summer vacation.
As a result, like the Penn-Princeton basketball game, there would be 15 fans in attendance instead of thousands. After hearing this news, the Quaker decided to give it up and jumped off the South Street bridge Saturday night. His body was the only thing found in the water. The goal posts from Franklin Field should have been there, but the administration decided to lower Penn's "fun RPI" even more by making them impossible to tear down.
Following the death of the Quaker, I began to get worried that the mascot who was next in line for his job was not me, but was the unofficial Princeton mascot. I headed over to Princeton to check it out, and as I suspected, the Princeton Veggie Burger was sitting by her phone awaiting the call. I broke into her room, sprinkled some bacon bits and BBQ sauce on her and forced her into early retirement.
Upon my return from Princeton, I found myself walking by McDonald's. A drunk old man approached me and asked me for some money so he could get some food. I told him that I spent all my money at Wizzard's last night, but he could get a couple bites of me. He declined and walked away. I'll tell you what, if I was a giant bottle of Olde English, I guarantee you that he wouldn't have passed me up.
On the way back to my house, I couldn't help but notice the Subway crowd at commons. I saw a girl trying to avoid the Freshman 15 by ordering an Atkins Friendly Veggie Delight. I walked up to her and gave her a hug to see her reaction. She ran away screaming. I guess she was scared to put her arms around an 80-inch wiener. If I were an Atkins Friendly Veggie Delight, I wouldn't be hanging out at the basketball games, I'd be sitting in my room too embarrassed to go out.
Despite being named the new Penn mascot, I'm kind of scared that I'll lose my job. Since I only go to men's basketball games, some of the women might try to use Title IX to get rid of me.
That's just another example of how Title IX is horrible for sports. Please, don't get rid of the hot dog.
I already had a close call once this year on Feb. 6. That night we were playing Harvard and Mike Schimmel started the "we want cheesesteaks" chant after we scored the first two points of the game. I was worried that people would get really hungry and eat me if we didn't score 100 points. Luckily, Pat Lang came through and hit a three-pointer to put us over 100 and my life was spared. Thanks Pat, I owe you.
Next year our team is not only going to score 100 points again, but also win the Ivy League and advance to the NCAA Tournament. For this to happen, though, all of you need to come out to every game. Penn basketball is one of the few things that is as fun at Penn as it is at many state schools. With everyone's support, we will be able to put together a winning streak longer than Ibby Jaaber's arms and win the league championship.
Well, I've got to go now. If you see me around, just yell "Hey Hot Dog!" and I'll stop and chat. I'm going to be spending the next few months working to re-elect President Bush, but I'll see y'all at every basketball game next year.
The Penn Hot Dog, (aka Cory Bray), is a sophomore in Wharton from Houston.
