Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, students and faculty, I have wonderful news for all of you. No, the dome is not being updated to platinum, this is even better. POGS are back. Yes, you heard me right, POGS are making their comeback. And this won't be like the wussy comebacks made by slap bracelets and Caucasian afros; this is going to be an all-out revolution. A circle-shaped cardboard revolution.
Some of you might ask where I came up with such a breathtakingly nostalgic idea. It all began last Sunday when I was listening to Mariah Carey's "Fantasy" and remembering those long summer afternoons at the roller-skating rink where I consistently crashed into hot middle school chicks and occasionally lost my retainer in the giant trash can. I wasn't even thinking about POGS until I ashamedly recalled how I was clotheslined by the giant skating rink limbo stick and how my shirt pocket full of POGS exploded, sending POG-shrapnel all over the skating floor, tripping nearly every skater in the immediate area. It was the skating rink equivalent of a fifteen car pileup.
All embarrassing skating stories aside though (and there are many more), the more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was no good reason for POGS to ever go out of style. The only reason the POG communities ever came to a halt in my school was a direct result of me living in the Bible belt, and my friends' parents believing that the "Poison" brand POGS with skulls on them could summon the powers of Satan. If anything, that has to be good publicity for POGS now, just like we saw with the resurgence of the mysterious Ouija board (brought to you by Parker Brothers, makers of other satanic games such as Monopoly and Hi Ho Cherry-O.)
Despite this logical support for my idea, initially, even I doubted that I could start a global, possibly intergalactic POG revolution, but the more people I inform of the POG movement, the more confident I am in its inevitable success. Not only does just about everyone have some POGS stored away at home in a shoebox, refrigerator box or the occasional private warehouse, but no one I've talked to is really sure why they ever stopped playing with POGS. I still have not run into a person that has commented, "Wow, I had a ton of POGS. Too bad I outgrew them." Every one of us has been stubbornly denying our appetite for cardboard discs since the mid-90's and it's going to stop right now.
So call home. Tell all your best middle school friends about the next big thing. Tell your family members too. And don't forget to send a letter to your parents, asking that this time, they send POGS (possibly even a Care POG-age.)
Friends, it is time to embrace a pastime that has been irrationally banished from popularity for too long. It is time that we all stood as one and showed the world that we are not afraid to take pride in something that has been unfairly ridiculed on "I Love the 90's" one too many times. It is time to throw down, POG-style.
Dan Keough
sophomore
O'Neill
April 5
