An Irrational Fear of Patchouli

Disclaimer: This post may be mildly offensive to hippies, frat boys, feminists, and generally anybody from Oregon…so yeah…sorry.

Take a look at this:



“How could anyone hate this place? How could anyone leave it?” said my friend who shot this picture on a weekend visit to this serene scene. How? I’ll tell you how…

I am all for recycling...I love a good tree hug as much as the next person…yes I own a hemp satchel…but at some point a reasonable person has to draw a line. I drew this line four years ago.

It was a rainy November morning in Eugene, OR (not that that is any different from any other morning because it rains every goddamn day there). The temperature in my apartment had reached an all-time low as I awoke to my muffled alarm through my fuzzy moose earmuffs. I shuffled through my damp and moldy apartment to the kitchen where a batch of my roommates “specialty” (mac and cheese mixed with tuna and franks and beans…I’ll wait while you run to the bathroom to hurl) sat crusting over from the night before.

I willed myself into the shower and then into my “clothes” (pajamas + parka = clothes) and hauled ass to my calculus class in the pouring rain.

On the way I walked down Greek row where the “oh my god”s and the “DUDE!”s reverberated back and forth between the buildings and what’s that I hear? A collective retching coming from that sorority house?

Onward past the feminists screaming at some poor male who got a little too close and the druggies hackysacking and the yeehaws spitting their chew in my path and speaking loudly of hunting and logging.

I passed the graveyard with the creepy kids in black who pretend they are vampires and sleep on the graves and do god knows what else.

Soaked to the bone, I began to hear the drums outside the president’s office (right next door to where Animal House was filmed). The protesters were banging their drums in protest but the hippies didn’t seem to mind. They turned out in droves to dance half naked in the rain to the protest drums. Even through the downpour I could smell them…body odor and patchouli…the scent made me want to turn around, but a band of naked muddy hippie children had gathered at my back, so I broke into a run…past the Tuesday morning bible study…past my classroom altogether and back toward my apartment.

“Screw class…I can’t take this today,” I muttered as I pealed the drenched clothing off me and jumped into my bed with its contraband heating blanket that if my roommate would have know about she would of killed me for using $2 more energy to avoid hypothermia.

People who have visited the U of O ask me, “How could you leave such a beautiful campus?” It is because if you stick around for longer than a week you will see a lot more of what I described than what is pictured above.

No offense Oregon…you have some nice rivers stuff.