Spending Easter at Notre Dame
Joe Muto
Muto Time
Well, the Queen of Notre Dame contest was an absolute success. I was the master of ceremonies. This is as close as I will ever get to having the initials M.C. come before my name without getting beat with orange-filled sweat socks for pretending to be a rapper.
Many of you will not read this article, as you are already on the road laughing maniacally at the prospect of an extended weekend as you head home to the hotbed of dysfunction that is your family holiday. Christ died for our sins so you could stuff your fat face with Cadbury Creme eggs. And by "you" I mean "me." Those things are friggin' delicious.
Actually, if you're anything like me, you'll be spending your Easter hepped up on mushrooms with your forehead firmly pressed against the glass of the running dorm microwave, giggling and watching a pink marshmallow Peep slowly expand to the size of a human lung. I'm spending Easter at Notre Dame, baby.
Frankly, I see no reason to go home. My parents and my still-in-high-school sister jet to Destin, Florida early Friday morning to bask in the sun with all the other yuppies. They offered to fly me down for the weekend this year, but I declined, as I was somewhat uncomfortable when they did the same thing last year. It's not that I didn't appreciate the free trip, courtesy of Papa Muto; I did. It's just that I couldn't stand the looks of pity that the other vacationers gave me. "How sad," their eyes said. "A college boy needs his mommy and daddy." Yes, it was the looks of pity that got me. That and the looks of wanton lust I received from all of the 15-year old girls as I wandered the beach. So annoying.
Easter is an interesting holiday, in that the Catholic Church says it's the most important one. However, in a kid's view, Easter is a distant third behind Christmas and Halloween. Why Christmas is in first place is a no-brainer; presents always come before candy. One would think that this would make Halloween and Easter, both candy-centric holidays, equal — this is obviously not the case.
Halloween involves dressing up in cool outfits and going out at night. Easter involves waking up early, putting on itchy dress-up clothes and going to church, the most boring of all places for kids and adults alike. Even Halloween candy is vastly superior to Easter candy. As much as I like Cadbury Creme eggs (and I really do), do you remember trick or treating? Some of those people gave out full size candy bars. Plus, with Halloween there was a direct work/benefit correlation. The faster you moved, the more candy you'd get. With Easter, you get your basket and that's it. That Easter Bunny could leave you a jolly old turd log sitting on top of some of that fake green and yellow plastic grass, and you couldn't do a thing about it. With Halloween, you at least have the option of throwing eggs.
All of this points to an alarming fact. What are we teaching our youth? To them, the birth of Jesus is supremely awesome, while the resurrection of Jesus is in danger of getting aced out by Thanksgiving on the strength of pumpkin pie. Let me repeat that: Jesus' birth, something that involved no effort on his part, equals awesome. Jesus' resurrection, something that no one else has ever done before, equals crap. We're sending our youth the wrong message.
I'm kidding of course. Easter is a holy, sacred time of year, made even holier by the fact that I can return to the dining halls on Friday instead of hopping down the street to Wendy's. Jesus was a good man, but if he had tried to serve the crap fish that the dining hall serves when he divided the fish and loaves, we'd all be worshipping the god Jupiter right now. Plus, even He could not have resisted the 99 cent junior bacon cheeseburger.
Joe Muto is a Junior FTT and English major who has been writing an awful lot about Jesus lately. It makes you think.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Wednesday, April 16, 2003
