April Fools: The rewards of the bro lifestyle

With the advent of springtime, a young bro’s fancy turns to thoughts of maybe attending a… With the advent of springtime, a young bro’s fancy turns to thoughts of maybe attending a class or two. You know, if it’s nice outside and not too far to walk.

After hibernating throughout most of the summer, winter and fall, the university’s bros have officially returned to campus life, thus heralding the start of Pitt’s 2012 social season.

“Yeah man, I texted this one girl, Emmy or Emily or something, and then, after she texted me back saying she was just chilling, I was like, nah, I don’t want to get tied down. I want to keep it casual and laid-back. So instead of replying, I just watched SportsCenter for a couple of hours, which turned into a couple of days somehow,” said Jordan McWyatt, a 21-year-old business major who claims he’s been a bro since his junior year in high school, when he decided against bending the brim of his green New York Yankees cap. “I’m getting back in the saddle, and I’ve got a feeling this is the summer where I totally rock out and make some memories. My buddy works as a lifeguard, and he’s like, dude, you can totally make some money doing this, and all you have to do is sit on your ass. Doesn’t that sound sweet?”

Like McWyatt, thousands of clean-cut, cherub-cheeked young men have adopted the bro lifestyle, excited by the many possibilities it affords.

Eagleton Lipp, a longtime Madden aficionado who only recently began identifying himself as a bro, announced that he too has big plans for the spring. “I was thinking I’d maybe get a pingpong table off Craigslist, and then I was like, dawg, who do I know who has a truck? My head started to hurt either because I was either thinking too hard or had a wicked hangover, so I got a couple $5 pizza pies because I’m hardgaining up to a ripped 220 pounds for summer. I cut the sleeves off some of my old high school sports team T-shirts, too, because my guns are getting swole the f out. Starting to get a little fat ripple under my chin, too, but I think I’ll just do the swagalicious thing and cover it up with a goatee. Flavor saver, am I right?”

In an age when most undergraduates are content to sit in their dorm rooms waiting out bomb threats and watching that viral video about Joseph Kony, the brave souls who have decided to “go bro” won’t be going back anytime soon.

“Nah man, I moved off campus as soon as I could. Talk about a lame scene up there,” McWyatt explained. “My boys and I found this awesome house in the Dirty South with a killer basement. We set up a flatscreen TV, a PS3, it’s unbelievable. Sure, the bathroom here gets pretty foul, what with one toilet for eight brohams, but whatever. I keep a milk jug right next to the bed, so it’s all good.”

Lipp believes that he’ll enjoy great success during the impending social season. “Yeah, I got invited to this one party on Facebook. I don’t know if I’ll go, but maybe. It’s in South Oakland, not exactly the ‘Dirty South,’ so I don’t know how much I feel like walking. These Rainbows tear up my feet, dawg. But maybe I will, which is why I marked ‘maybe’ on the invite. Or maybe not. A lot of times I just go on Facebook and look at my pics from that time I was partying and had my collar popped the f out, because, damn, that was a good time.”

Many Pitt students were heartened by the news that the bros have resumed their activities.

“Yeah, there are now these three real puffy-looking dudes in incredibly stinky sweatpants sitting in the back row of my writing class. We hadn’t seen them for weeks, but then, on the first sunny day of the semester, there they were. They looked really sleepy, which is strange because the class starts at 6 p.m.,” said Amanda Nicole, a freshman biology major. “One of them lives on the same block as a friend of mine. I passed by there a couple nights ago, and I could see a video game being played on this huge TV. The TV must’ve been on mute, because the only sound I could hear was someone crying.”

“Yeah, I don’t know, man. It was a tough night. I was playing the T-Wolves, using Rubio and my boy K-Love like I always do, and absolutely crushing this kid in online mode, and then I swear he uses a cheat code and Chris Kaman goes off for 40 points like he’s Kobe or something,” said McWyatt. “You would’ve cried, too. I lost to the Hornets, brahski.”

Although aware that the bros have returned to his class, writing instructor Regis Kelly remains skeptical of their true intentions. “Those three students haven’t showed up for at least two months. They don’t have any attendance points, and attendance is a quarter of their grade. One of them turned in a paper a few weeks ago about the Minnesota Timberwolves that was just a printout from Wikipedia he hadn’t even bothered to reformat. I asked him if he thought doing something like that was okay, and he replied that it was okay by him. I was going to let him redo the paper, but after he said that, I just gave him a zero. You can’t make this stuff up.”

Oliver Bateman (oliver.lee1@gmail.com) and his friends operate the Moustache Club of America, a website devoted to flash fiction that mustn’t be confused with the Beard Club of America, which is a website devoted to beards. You can check out the former at moustacheclubofamerica.com. The latter can probably be located with an Internet search.