The Battle

It was a cool morning in early November. The wind swirled through the stadium, sending a chill through the warriors scattered through the structure. Whether that chill was due to the the cold or because of the dread of upcoming battle is something that history will never know.

The Battlefield

The brothers of Phi Sigma Pi had arrived early that morning, to conduct the onerous task of cleaning the stadium, dirty from the previous nights victory over the South Carolina Gamecocks. It went quickly, much quicker than the many times they had done it before. And over the course of the morning, they found the ammo for the quickly approaching battle.

The Weapons of Choice

The lemons were everywhere. It seemed that every time the brothers bent down to grab another piece of trash, they found empty cups, full of half lemons. There has been a long tradition in Phi Sigma Pi of throwing these lemons at one another while cleaning the stadium. But on this day, the lemon skirmishes erupted into a full blown war.

The seeds of war had been set two months back. Oded The Mighty, joined by Cush the Brave, had staged a small surprise lemon assualt on a band of workers valiently trying to clean the their section. It had worked perfectly, but it was quickly forgotten in the winds of history and the length of work that day's toil entailed. Walking into the stadium, no one knew that the battle that came was in the works, but it soon became apparent that something big was going to happen.

Everyone was collecting lemons and storing them in any container available. Cups, boxes, bags, randomly found tubberware containers. All of them were soon filled with lemon halfs. And soon, they were used.

It started slow. A few people had lemons thrown at them, and a small band of warriors, led by Jeff "Dead-Eye" Schrodener, attacked a group of laborers from the high ground, catching them completely by surprise and inflicting heavy casualties. Notable in the wounded was James the Pledge, who was left with a horrific scar on his side. War claimed another victim, as he will be scarred for life.

Soon, the brothers had been divided into two groups. One was cleaning the very top of the South Endzone. The other was taking care of the Student Section. I was in the Endzone. I would like to say that I was cleaning, but instead I was having lemon rubbed into my hair by Rachel "The Squeezer" Kramer, who had decided that I would be her sole victim of the day. She was valient in battle, and though I fought hard, in the end I found myself vanquished and covered in bits of lemons and sticky with juice.

And after this minor fight, our group noticed something alarming: The other group had disappeared. We could assume only one thing: We were about to be attacked. So the weapons were assembled, and cover found. And we waited.

The battle began with the attackers running out of a gate, a war cry proceeding thier charge. Soon, the attackers found that the tables had been turned on them, as my group had both the high ground and better cover. Both groups fought to a standstill. There was never a shortage of ammunition, as anyone without lemons could just pick up the one that just had hit you in the head.

The battle slowed, and then stopped. Both sides took a moment to view the battlefield, and were stunned by what they saw. Lemons were everywhere. The victims of the battle were laying and standing around, trying in vain to catch thieir breath and get the lemon pulp out of their hair and clothes.

The Great Lemon War had ended. As is often the case, no one won. We were all victims. But it was fun.