Sloppy Seconds: The Tucker Max Leftovers

Tucker goes to campout, owns Duke nerds

From Assholes Finish First

Occurred—September 2000

I went to law school at Duke, and as you may know, basketball is huge there. The demand for tickets, even for grad students, far outstrips the supply. In order to solve this problem, the people in charge make grad students camp out in a field to get into the lottery for the chance to get tickets. They expect you to spend a weekend sleeping in dirt and checking in every time they blow their whistles, like a fucking homeless kindergartener.

You think I’m exaggerating, don’t you? This is taken directly from the Duke grad student website:

“Welcome to Duke! Let’s get right to the most important is- sue on your mind: How can YOU get season tickets to this year’s men’s basketball games in Cameron Indoor Stadium? Eligibility to purchase tickets is determined via the Graduate and Professional Student Council Basketball Ticket Campout. Campout for Duke Men’s Basketball season will be held starting at 7:00pm on Friday, September 8, and runs through Sunday, September 10, at approximately 7am.

The rules are simple: make it through the weekend without missing two attendance checks and your name is entered in a lottery. Lottery winners are then drawn and each of these lucky individuals is eligible to buy one of the 700 graduate and professional season tickets. . . .

But Campout isn’t just about basketball tickets. With almost 2000 students representing nearly every program and department at the University in attendance, this is also the premier graduate and professional student social event of the year. Campout is an excellent opportunity to bond with your students in your own program and make friends in other programs.”

The bolding is theirs, not mine. Not only do they want grad students to spend their limited free time toiling in a parking lot, they are condescend- ing about it. Either that, or they’re just fucking retarded—do they really think that being stuck in a parking lot with 2,000 nerds is “the premier graduate and professional student social event of the year”? Not going to a bar or to a party with your friends, or, God fucking forbid, ACTUALLY GOING TO THE GAMES. Nope, to them, the coolest thing a grad student can do is to root around in filth.

I want tickets, so I have to go. OK, fine. But if those Duke basketball tools are going to make me sleep outside for two nights, I’m going to make them pay. And not just by getting drunk and fucking their ugly girlfriends.

It took me a few days, but I finally figured out how to completely ruin the event for everyone who sucks, while concurrently making it awesome for me and my friends. About two weeks before the grad student campout was to start, I was in the law library, intently focusing on my computer screen when my buddy Hate walked up.

Hate “What are you up to?”

Tucker “Ordering something online.”

Hate “What, a Russian mail-order bride?”

Tucker “Better. A bullhorn.”

Hate “What for?”

Tucker “For Campout. Look at this one, dude: It has a one-mile range! And a 110-decibel siren! It’s made for police use!”

Hate [ten-second blank stare] “Jesus have mercy on our souls.”

I paid extra for 2nd day delivery. When the day of arrival came, I was so excited I stayed home from class. Waiting for the delivery guy felt like Christmas, except without the part where your parents drink all the pres- ent money and wrap up things from your room as your gifts. Credit and Hate stayed home that day too, not because they were excited about the bullhorn, but because they are dicks. They wanted to taunt me un- til it arrived, knowing the anticipation was slowly killing me. (That, and none of us ever went to class anyway because law school is ridiculously easy.)