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As we crunch to make last-minute plans with our friends for Harvard Yale, students need to be more aware of just how bad The Game being in New Haven can be. Instead of a highlight reel of your stay at Yale, we need to look at a very realistic lowlight situation, so we know what not to do. Plus, if anything goes poorly, we can return to this article and remind ourselves that it can always get worse.

Finding Transportation From Campus

You wake up on Friday morning, have back-to-back STEM lectures, and, while already on the verge of tears, are leaving math 21a when your shuttle ticket flies out of your bag. You scramble to recover the ticket, to no avail. Instead of feeling defeated, you send an email to your house mailing list and make a post on Sidechat. Next thing you know, they are both buried by 50 people in the same boat. You think to yourself, “will not being able to go really be that bad?” No, after today, you’ll wish you'd missed it. But alas, you find a ticket.

The Shuttle Ride

You get on the latest shuttle Harvard has, and all of your friends are already at Yale. Upon unzipping your bag, you realize you did not pack anything for an overnight stay, not even a toothbrush. It should be fine, you tell yourself, nobody should be sober enough to tell my breath smells by the time I get there.

Arriving At Yale

You tell yourself that you’re going to prioritize fun, but your patience is tested after spending over an hour trying to find your room for the night in New Haven (of all places). Once you finally find it, the festivities can begin. You rally for the first event of the night and meet up with friends again, but when you get to the venue for the first function, you’re met with a slap in the face: tickets were $30 three weeks ago online, but your friends didn’t tell you, so your only option is to pay the $50 at the door (Toad’s, we’re looking at you).

The function turns out not to be what it was advertised as, and your group wants to hop parties. You soon realize that everywhere is ticketing, and instead of having your pockets emptied by random Yale frat brothers, you make the call to go back and rest before the premier event: The Game.

The Tailgate

It’s Saturday morning now, and all bets are off — it is time to have a great time and cheer on The Crimson. You roll out of bed and begin to dress warmly, but you quickly realize you forgot to pack the staple of the game: your red knit “H” sweater. How could you show off school spirit now? The outfit mishap throws you into a panic, and you throw something together before you find yourself at the tailgate. The experience is hellish; it is cold, you have to walk through packs of people for literally anything, and all of your friends disappear the instant you get there.

The Game

You try to hold out on tailgate fun, but after searching for your friends for more than an hour, you give up and head into the Bowl by kickoff. As you watch the game, your head pounds, you have a nearly full-blown panic attack because of the lack of service, and your friends never show up. In a final blow, you watch as the team you dedicated your weekend to support loses tragically to their biggest rival — The Bulldogs blow the Crimson out of the water. Instead of storming the field, you storm the shuttle home.

The End?

All in all, hundreds of dollars and permanent liver damage later, you wonder if any of it was worth it, then realize, even during a major loss, you would rather back the Crimson than shy away from your school spirit. By the end of it all, you internalize one message: Yuck Fale.