I am, by way of nature, disgusted with that habitat of Satan, which is known as Oxford. I refuse to call the institution there by its popular moniker, preferring instead the less frequented UM merely because of the fact that its affiliates dislike it. My born & bred hatred of that institution of the devil established, I will reveal that 3 of the loves of my life were UM-philes.
In Kindergarten, the object of my affection was a fair-haired boy I shall call Larry, who pulled my hair and pushed me down on the playground. Larry wore T-shirts touting a certain mythical military gentleman. When I kissed him behind the holly bush at recess, Larry wiped furiously at his face and ran away screaming. Embarrassed by my 1st crash & burn experience with the opposite sex, I blamed it on my stupidity in pursuing a fan of that most evil place. Even at 5, I should have known better.
At 18, boys no longer wiped my kisses away. My senior year, I lusted for a defensive back I will call Moe. Moe was a rich, cocky, arrogant bastard and, for some reason that now escapes me, I found it incredibly sexy. We made out at parties every weekend and at the park during the week but he ignored me at school. When I asked him about this in the backseat of his Tahoe one night, he informed me that he was going to play football at UM and UM football players did not date white trash. White Trash? White Trash! Furious, I once again blamed my stupidity on falling for an UM-phile. I should know better. Moe flunked out of UM before he ever got to look at VH stadium from under a football helmet. I consoled myself by laughing my ass off and a 3.7 GPA. White Trash my ass!
On my 21st birthday, I had my 1st date with Curly, who was also a former linebacker and UM student. I tried to reason that, because Curly left UM after his freshman year and actually graduated from MC, things would be different. Curly was quite religious, quite conservative, and quite a male-chauvinist pig. I quit swearing and wore long dresses with conservative necklines and let him make the 1st moves. Turns out, for all his conservative religious image, Curly was an undercover freak. He changed the oil, took out the trash, topped off the fluids, and bought me a fuel filter for Valentine’s Day. I thought I had found the perfect man. He worked in a church and I respected that. He spoke of a deeper commitment and professed his undying love for me with poetry, songs, and flowers. I thought I had found the perfect man. We dated for over a year. On the 4th of July, he returned home from a weeklong trip out of town with the church to inform me that on the trip he had fallen truly, madly, deeply in love with a barely 18-year-old member of the church youth group. He was 26.
After all of this, and these are only 3 of the stories of woe in my dating life, I decided that if I ever again desired to fall head over feet with in love, lust, or any other emotion, a UM-phile, I was obligated to myself to leap from the bell tower. Must you be Catholic to become a nun?
} 
