Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for you all to learn about the time I successfully convinced a woman that “Red Dawn” was a true story.
Given the fact we’re all stuck inside because of coronavirus ravaging this great nation, I’ve been giving you guys a few stories here and there from my past that I find funny or interesting. You guys seem to be enjoying them. So, I’m going to keep telling them. (RELATED: David Hookstead Is The True King In The North When It Comes To College Football)
Folks, do we have a doozy of a story this time around, and it’s about the time I successfully convinced a woman in college that “Red Dawn” actually happened.
Now, in order to understand this story, you first have to understand the setup I was living in while attending the University of Wisconsin. I lived with a bunch of buddies in a big house junior year, which is the year this happened.
The living room was downstairs and featured a couple couches and a big TV where we’d all get together to watch sports and movies.
It was also where the beer pong table was located, and this is key. That meant our living room was also our main party room. If there was beer flowing, you could bet it’d be flowing in the living room.
It wasn’t uncommon at all for us to have a dozen or so people over in the late afternoon before hitting up the bars or a larger party. We’d drink some beers, watch some sports and shoot the breeze.
Now, this was the same year the “Red Dawn” remake was released in 2012. Due to that, I was watching the original a couple times a week to get myself ready.
That leads me to one of my all-time achievements. My roommates did well with women for the most part, but the range of caliber of women they dated was very wide. Some of them dated women I’d put into the all-star category. They were incredibly intelligent, motivated, ambitious and have gone on to live mostly successful lives. There was a middle tier of women, and I’d consider them to be just your average gal in a college setting.
Then there was the bottom tier, and I was never impressed by these women. Yet, some of my roommates just kept bringing them around!
One day, I was in the living room drinking some beers with a roommate when another entered the room with two women (props to him), and I’m not sure either one could have told you what state borders Wisconsin to the west.
To prepare for a great American night, I had “Red Dawn” on the TV, and these women just wouldn’t stop getting louder and louder. On top of that, they wouldn’t stop asking dumb questions about the film.
Finally, I’d had enough, and I told one of them the iconic film was the true story of the great war in 1980 against the Soviet Union.
The look on her face was an even mix of confusion and inability to understand, which was then followed up with, “We fought a war against Russia?” Good for her for knowing at least one country that made up the Soviet Union.
That’s when I paused the movie and just took a deep dive into this great war America won in 1980. I explained to her how the Soviet nukes had knocked out key tactical strongholds of America in the Dakotas, and how “crack” paratroopers took the Rocky Mountains.
I damn near repeated the explanation scene from the movie word for word, and she bought it hook, line and sinker.
I mean, she didn’t just buy it. She was asking genuine questions about why this was never taught in high schools or colleges. I had to explain with a quivering lip that after America lost 80 million men in the great war of 1980 that we couldn’t discuss it in schools because the pain was too great.
Keep in mind, more and more roommates are filing into the room to watch this circus unfold with looks of disbelief on their faces as they watch this woman try to comprehend.
At one point, I explained to her how D.C. took a direct nuclear strike, but we were able to hold off the Soviets at the Mississippi River (again, a direct reference to the plot of the film).
In an attempt to stop her from realizing I was just lying through my teeth messing with her, I decided to turn the movie off assuming this little prank had run its course.
It pretty much had. Then, later at night, she was literally talking to people how she had just learned the USA lost 80 million men in the great war of 1980. Eventually, somebody told her she was being pranked and she was far from pleased.
Still, to this day, I consider it my greatest accomplishment. If you aren’t smart enough to know Washington D.C. didn’t get nuked in 1980, then you deserve to get made fun of.
Either way, I have no regrets. It’ll forever be one of the funniest things I’ve ever done, and I hope this little trip down memory lane helped you kill a little time. Wolverines!