“Because I’d support a hooker, and you’d support a hooker, we’d all support a hooker together!” You may not understand the reference made there, or generally support the hooker industry, but just as those two props are supporting that poor hooker in the middle; rugby is the prop on which a lot of society relies on without anyone knowing.
It was brought to my attention recently by a concerned friend that too many things have the name “rugby” in them, and that is confusing and upsetting, since rugby is not all too big in the United States. The definition of “too many things,” as defined by my friend, was namely two articles of clothing: rugby scarves and rugby shirts. Apparently, that was too many and I am not all too sure why two is too many, because to be too many one does not generally have two, they have three, or four, but two is never considered too many of something to be upsetting.
Yet, in this instance two was in fact too many, so let’s break this down further. The rugby scarf is the pinnacle of scarves, what one could consider the quintessential scarf for all scarf enthusiasts and cold New Englanders. One could purchase a simple Burberry scarf for the mere cost of $470, but why? Why would you do that? Why would you do that when one could simply walk into a CVS and buy a cheap rugby scarf, which will keep you warmer around your neck than the feeling of putting your hands down your crotch for the central body warmth. So, apparently the easy and cost-effective way of keeping your neck warm in the winter is too much for some Massachusetts college students; but to them I ask this: are you broke? Because if your answer, like mine, is “yes,” then it seems you have run out of options, my friend, and must fall victim to the rugby scarf.
Once you have taken your first step down the rugby rabbit hole your next stop is at rugby shirts. Do you want a shirt that will last you your whole life? A shirt which will be passed down in your will to your kids and then to their kids? A shirt which will outlive your entire family and probably survive a nuclear fallout? I mean seriously, you could put a rugby shirt into a bonfire, take it out and put gasoline on it and then light it on fire again, run a chainsaw through the middle of it, throw it off of the Empire State Building, and then put it in the washing machine and nothing will have happened to it. These shirts are indestructible and always maintain their look. If that is not reason enough to buy a rugby shirt, besides how comfortable they are, I do not know what is. Those shirts are majestic, and to consider them “too much” is simply a shame that must be coming from a rugby shirt virgin who does not know the pleasure one has inside one.
Rugby may not be huge in the United States, but the two issues my friend pointed out reminded me of how those rugby items are like a scrum for real life. A scrum occurs after a foul on the pitch, such as a forward pass or knock on and then three players from both teams lock arms to fight. If you do not have YouTube or the will to look this up on YouTube you can do this with your hands. Bind your knuckles together and you’ll get the general gist, any econ major can figure this out so do not worry about doing it wrong. But the two guys on the outside are generally the biggest and strongest guys on the team and they are called “props.” Sandwiched between them is the poor sucker called the “hooker” who is generally the smallest guy on the team with a trustworthy foot. They kick the ball back to their team from the bottom of the scrum to keep the game going.
The “props” are the rugby scarves and rugby shirts and the hooker is culture. Without the big, strong game of rugby holding up culture the poor hooker would simply be crushed and die, but rugby, just like a prop and presumably a pimp, will never let go of its best hooker.
