Augie History

Satire / Guns don't kill people - football does

By Charles Budeit

I went to a different sort of party Friday night. About twenty guys had all reached 21 in the last few months, so they decided to have a combination 21 party and celebration of Reagan's first two months in office. When I reached the field where they were having the party, the thing that struck me was that everyone except me had a handgun.

"Hello there," said the tipsy host, and I knew there was no backing out now, not with a .38 pointed at my stomach, at any rate. "I'll bet you're wondering why we all have guns," he said. "Well, the reason is that at 21, you not only get to drink hard liquor, you get to buy handguns, too. And now, with Reagan in office, and his opposition to gun control, we thought we'd celebrate our coming of age the way we know Ronnie would want us to."

About 20 yards from me was a guy who had obviously had way too much to drink, and had reached the depression stage: he was playing Russian roulette. Most of the other guys were just drinking whiskey and twirling their guns on their fingers. One guy accidentally shot his big toe off, but he was so drunk he didn't notice.

After a while, someone suggested playing football, using a bottle of vodka for the ball. Everyone agreed until someone else said, "I spent a lot of money on this gun, and I want to use it. Let's not play football."

A big argument broke out then, because half wanted to play football and half wanted to use their guns.

Always the peacemaker, I stepped in and suggested a compromise: "I've got an idea. You've heard of tackle football and touch football, why not bullet football? Instead of touching or tackling the guy with the ball, just shoot him."

Everyone liked that idea, so peace was restored, but they said I couldn't play because I didn't have a gun.

The kickoff was a total disaster; the bottle they were using as a football broke upon impact. They quickly agreed to have a throw-off to start the game instead. When the bottle was thrown, everyone on the receiving team rushed to get it.

A big burly guy caught it. The poor guy didn't have a chance. Three magnums were already pointing at his head. He went down with the first shot. The offense's quarterback tried a pass play for the first play, but he was sacked by two .45's. The next plays were about the same, with the offense getting absolutely nowhere.

The game continued for about five minutes, but then it had to stop because all the offensive players had been shot to death. Naturally someone took charge and started organizing things.

"Okay, you three go around picking up guns, and I want the rest of you to pick up every single corpse and make this place look livable again."

Everyone did as he was told, and soon we had put all the corpses into large garbage bags and had cleaned and polished the guns for future use.

The party was over now, so we all started to leave. I was glad to be going, but I heard one guy say, "Great party! Let's do this again next year!" They all cheered.

The Augustana Mirror, Vol. 64, No. 21, 1981

Augie History is Compiled by Hal Thompson / Mirror Forum Editor