{"id":51113,"date":"2017-02-16T08:30:52","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T14:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ndsuspectrum.com\/?p=51113"},"modified":"2017-02-15T15:05:23","modified_gmt":"2017-02-15T21:05:23","slug":"the-end-of-an-era-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ndsuspectrum.com\/the-end-of-an-era-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The End of an Era"},"content":{"rendered":"

After watching countless people biff it on the ice during my freshman year, sometimes in spectacular fashion, I set myself a goal \u2014 make it through four years at NDSU without eating asphalt. Alas, the record couldn’t last.<\/p>\n

I thought it was an admirable goal. I stepped carefully, day after day, semester after semester. Eventually, I got confident. I started writing guides to avoid slipping on ice. I bragged about my patented flail-and-pray<\/a> method.<\/p>\n

Just this semester, I witnessed a three-person pileup, complete with spilled coffee and flying papers, which inspired me to write an article about the rogue zamboni driver<\/a> who I’m sure haunts the campus just for giggles.<\/p>\n

I chuckled at my own wittiness as I wrote it.<\/p>\n

The day dawned cold and gray. My coffee machine plugged up with grounds, and as I fiddled with it, my bagel burned in the toaster. I could tell nothing was going to go well. All of this may or may not have happened, but it sounds better this way. Run with it.<\/p>\n

I set out for school with my roommate at my side. Everything had melted the day before\u00a0and then frozen during the night, so a thin film of ice covered the entire parking lot.<\/p>\n

“Slicker than snot,” I said.<\/p>\n

“Yeaheeeeeeargh,” my roommate yelled as he hit a patch of ice. He employed the flail-and-pray, and managed to stay on his feet, but looked like a fool doing it. I guffawed.<\/p>\n

“Didn’t you see the cross-hatching?” I asked. “It’s an obvious sign of ice.”<\/p>\n

We pressed on\u00a0since the buses will leave you, ice or no ice.<\/p>\n

I spied a melted patch\u00a0and stepped confidently forward to make up for lost time. To my dismay, I found out the thin layer of water was hiding an invisible layer of ice underneath.<\/p>\n

“I’ll get that dastardly zamboni driver if it’s the last thing I do,” I yelled, flailing madly. It wasn’t enough. I bit the dust. He finally got me.<\/p>\n

I looked around to see if anyone witnessed the end of my perfect walking record. Besides one hysterically wheezing roommate, nobody was in sight except for a few maintenance guys spreading salt on some ice I didn’t slip on. Phew.<\/p>\n

“The \u2014 haw \u2014 cross-hatching \u2014 hee-hee,” my roomate wheezed out, between gales of maniacal laughter.<\/p>\n

I picked myself up\u00a0and gingerly made my way to the bus stop, where I ignored the intermittent giggling.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until 10 minutes later that I realized I had lost something.<\/p>\n

My pride lay somewhere back there in a puddle of melting ice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"