What Happens to a Dream Deferred?

Ah, the best-laid plans of mice and ill-behaved women...

I have a proud, long history of stalking Olympians. I say that stubbornly, because I'm distantly aware that my 12th-grade decision to follow the 1996 male gymnastics Olympic team back to their hotel after a gymnastics exhibition for an autograph actually constitutes a shameful, short history of stalking Olympians.

But never mind that.

We had big plans, me and TP, my cohort in lingering adolescence. Hometown hero Michael Phelps would be just up the road in Towson, MD for the gala festivities dubbed the "Phelpstival." You heard me, the Phelpstival. If it had been called "Hometown Parade" or "Welcome Back Michael!" or something similar, it would have probably passed unnoticed. But the Phelpstival? What's funnier than that? It's practically begging for a couple of grown women who ought to know better to come and make utter asses of themselves. With a thermos full of gin and tonics. And once we were good and wasted, we were going to start screaming "TAKE IT OFF" and "SHOW US YOUR GLUTES" and any other wildly inappropriate cat-calls that we trashy ho-bags could think to sling at a wide-eyed, sheltered 19-year-old. It was going to be glorious, it was going to be hilarious, it was going to be this next weekend.

So imagine my distress when I come into my office only to learn that the Phelpstival was held this past Saturday, when instead of screaming drunkenly at the dolphin boy, I was screaming drunkenly at Mack Brown and Vince Young and all the rest of my dear Longhorns who pulled off a win, but who I fear will once again let me down against OU in a few weeks. Fucking OU.

Anyway, it sucks. We missed our crowning moment of combining puberty with alcohol. And it looks like we would have been in good company. I hope somebody with photoshop will take care of pasting my and TP's heads onto the bodies of our spiritual sistas:

(I want to be the pink panther one. TP can be the cutie-patootie in white. Just change her flag for a cocktail glass.)