Inviting Hickenlooper to Break Bread

Hickenlooper, buddy, what's going on? It's your old pal Adam Cayton-Holland. Yes, the same Adam Cayton-Holland who grew up in Park Hill. Hey, how are you enjoying the neighborhood? I noticed you put a trampoline in the yard — nice move. I'm sure Teddy's loving that thing. My dad would never let us get a trampoline. We'd always have to go to our neighbors' house and ask if we could jump on theirs. They were cool, but we could never really enjoy their trampoline with the abandon that we would one of our own. Had I my own trampoline, I would have bounced innumerable pets off of it; held competitions where friends and I would speed-drink milk, then jump until one of us puked; and, in high school, made out on it with hot chicks. But my dad wouldn't let us get one, which I honestly believe is what kept him from becoming mayor.

But one thing my dad did do was pay for college, Hick. Yes, sir, he paid for the whole thing, and I'm forever grateful, because I'm not saddled with student loans like so many of my friends. And you know where he paid for me to go to school? A little place I like to call Harvard, but is actually called Wesleyan University. I know you're familiar with the place, because you went there, too. That's correct, Denver: Your mayor and your What's So Funny both attended the same small liberal-arts school in Connecticut. And those of you who've been paying attention to television commercials lately — as opposed to those of you who've just been fast-forwarding through the commercials on TiVo, slashing the income of those advertisement writers and executives who work so hard — have probably noticed Hick flossing a red Wesleyan T-shirt in an effort to promote College Friday, an initiative by the good people at www.collegeincolorado.org. Our mayor, like several other local celebrities, is appearing in spots urging the good people of this city to wear their favorite college apparel on April 11. No problem there, Hick; I've been ironing my Wesleyan onesie.

But I've got another idea. Seeing as you and I are both Wesleyan men (a species characterized by our uncanny ability to bullshit on virtually any subject), what say on April 11, College Friday, you and I grab a bite to eat? My treat. Up to sixteen dollars. Let's do our bit to not just promote the idea of college for these Colorado kiddies, but to promote our alma mater as well.

Look, Hick, I know you've been there. Someone asks you where you went to college and you say Wesleyan, and then they stare back at you, blinking like a cow, before uttering, "That's in Ohio, right? I've heard of that." Or if not that, they'll respond with this: "Isn't that an all-girls school?" And you just want to grab that person by his fat, ignorant cow face and say, "No, I actually went to Wesleyan University, one of the best schools in the country. The fact that you haven't heard of it just goes to show how far inferior you are to me. You're like minor-league baseball, I'm like the majors, which means that technically we shouldn't even be playing this game." But we don't do that, do we, Hick, because we're polite, we're Wesleyan men, so instead we just patiently tell them a bit about our school and then dupe them into thinking we've actually read Rousseau.

And I'm sick of it, Hick, sick to death of it. Here we have an alma mater we should be able to lord over people like chardonnay-drinking elitists, but when I say the name of my school, they nod dismissively like I just said Barbizon, as if I learned to be a model or just look like one. And you can help me fix this. With your star power and my Wesleyan onesie, we can have a truly fine College Friday, a liberal arts College Friday, and our school's star will shine in these here Western parts as brightly as it does back East.

April 11. Lunch. You and me, Hick. What do you say?

And if not lunch, I'll accept one hour on the trampoline.