Editor’s note: The following is a continuing journal of a fictional college student. It is intended to be a humorous and enjoyable feature about an average Joe. It runs weekly, on Fridays. Though written by Iowa State’s own Scott Jacobson, a Daily staff writer, people, places and events detailed below are not analogous to a real student.

February 21, 1997

So there I was, hating life, just wondering if my day could get any worse. After five swipes of the snooze on my alarm clock, I was just a tad bit behind schedule and a brief, cold shower didn’t exactly help my mood.

Once I was all primped and proper, I proceeded to miss my usual bus by a matter of seconds, catch the next one only to end up out at the mall instead of the Design Center and then miss my morning classes as I waited for Red Route to bring me back to campus. In the meantime, however, I was able to get a new CD, a couple of cookies from the cookie stand (not a part of the food court), and a charge card from the Eagle with which I can put myself even further in debt.

When I got to my noon class, I had to hold my breath and triple jump over the spot where someone had tossed their cookies (oh, how I wish I meant it literally) and sit through class with a not-so-fresh odor lingering in the air.

To make matters less enjoyable, the teacher surprised me with a pop exam. Granted, everyone else seemed prepared for it, but that’s the price I pay when I choose lunch at the M-Shop over a 90-minute lecture for a month straight.

So there I was, struggling to pull test answers out of my butt while trying not to inhale the fumes of lunches past, when I say to myself, “Self, only two more weeks until spring break, so suck it up [no, not the pukey smell] and think of your own happy place.”

Ahhh … spring break — a time when boys will be boys, beers will be shared and self-respecting college students will sleep in cow pastures near the side of the road all in the name of a good time.

The other day, Monica asked me what we were going to do over break. Realizing that she was including me in her plural pronoun usage and not the turd in her pocket (figure of speech), I had to clue her in on an age-old law of nature.

There are certain things that just don’t go well together: Old Milwaukee and Fruity Pebbles, a grease fire and water, poison oak and a need for toilet paper in the woods (found that one out the hard way), Orange Jubilee Mad Dog and anything, yours truly and good luck with femalia, and the deadliest combination of them all — girlfriends and spring break.

Break is a time for guys to do guy things and we, being silly mammals, are easily amused once we hit the beaches of Cancun, South Padre, Mazatlan, or Peterson’s Pits. We can keep the same schedule day in and day out and be completely content and women just wouldn’t understand.

The steps are simple. First thing to do is wake up on the beach at the crack of noon, identify the person sleeping next to you, swap clothes back and thank them for an interesting night. Then you crack a beer.

Next step is to look on the other side of you at the guy still out cold from the night before and bury him in two feet of sand from head to toe leaving little blowholes so he can breathe. Then you drink until you pass out with the sun beating down on your soon-to-be-burnt-to-a-crisp body. This is called laying out.

When you’re done laying out, you wake up, brush the two feet of sand off, applied by some smartass, and look around to regain your bearings. Then you crack a beer. Refer to step one and repeat.

The alternative to a break on the beach is one in which guys (I have no clue what girls do over break besides tan and shop) simply hop in a car and go wherever their internal homing devices take them.

These trips must, by all means must, start at the conference basketball tournament in Kansas City. Where else can you see thousands of ISU fans packed into one place, exploiting the hell out of Embassy Suite’s free cocktails and beer for two hours?

The Cyclone pride then continues in the bars of Westport where alumni of all ages converge to tell about old times: “I remember back when we were just the Big Eight. Damn, times were simple then.”

After watching the Cyclones play in the championship game, it’s just a matter of hopping in the car and heading south just to see if you can hit Amarillo by morning.

The sheer excitement that goes along with that carefree drive can make a guy feel like he hasn’t sat behind a steering wheel in six months.

But that’s another whole story in itself.