I headed down to Pullman with Nick today for the Cougars’ first home game of the season. He was doing video for the game, and I was just along for the ride I guess. I watched part of the abysmal game from the library roof, a favorite old perch, though the schmancy new scoreboard does nothing for the view. I even saw the Cougars’ only field goal in the 66-3 embarrassment. 

But somehow, even as an alumna and lifelong Cougar fan, I was not devastated. On the contrary, there was a certain amount of delight in witnessing the worst loss of all time in WSU football history. Which made me wonder about extremes, and what strange impulse gives us perverse delight in circumstances that are otherwise disastrous. Who doesn’t watch the mercury when it could be the coldest day ever for this time of year? Who isn’t disappointed to miss the only snow day in decades? When there’s a power outage, who doesn’t hope at least the tiniest bit that it will last for hours and hours until we all fear for the ice cream?

Nick and I were talking about whether it’s an American thing, something to do with our individualism and love of more, bigger, most and all things extreme. Or maybe it’s universal, some evolutionary thing that better prepares us for danger by making extremes interesting.

In any case, the game was so unprecedentedly bad that it doesn’t seem sour.

I hung out in the Murrow basement hallway for a while after the game, waiting to meet up with Christina for a traditional Sella’s meal. No one was there and it occurred to me that for all the hours I spent in that basement I had no clue what the men’s bathroom looked like. So I checked it out.

It still felt weird, even knowing no one was in the building. And it’s tiny! I bet bunches of us Evergreeners have used those bathrooms day after day without ever knowing the women’s bathroom is like three times bigger than the men’s bathroom, which only has one stall, one urinal and one sink. The women’s bathroom has three stalls and two sinks, though the left-side sink doesn’t work too well and the middle stall has a slanty seat. Huh. I never knew, and really I never even wondered until today. And though I can’t vouch for the men’s bathrooms anywhere else, I would say the women’s bathroom in the Holland book stacks is my favorite of all the ones around campus.