mortarboard Pssst! I have a secret. I’ve discovered a quirky, little-known game that’s played every year at Harvard commencement. It’s a game anyone can enter. All you have to do is show up and buy a ticket to get in.

Here’s how you play:

1. Show up within one hour of the ceremony. If you check-in between 11AM and Noon, it costs you $20 to get in. If you show up later, you have to pay $50. But half of that goes to financial aid fundraising, so it’s still worth it.

2. The neat thing is you can get part or all of your entrance fee back by looking for randomly-placed graduates eating cheeseburgers in their seats.cheeseburger

3. The game is played by taking pictures surreptitiously of up to three people eating cheeseburgers and presenting your photos to an appointed judge. Any picture showing a graduate who spots you taking the picture doesn’t count.

Each valid picture is worth a certain dollar amount off the price of admission. For example, if you have one cheeseburger picture, it’s worth $5 off. If you have two, you get $10 off. If you achieve the trifecta of cheeseburger picture-taking, it’s worth $20 off.

You can see that if you arrive between 11AM and Noon, and paid only twenty dollars to get in, you can possibly get a refund on your entire ticket price!

Aside from the chance to earn back your entrance fee, the photo judged the best is signed by the university president and gets displayed outside her office for a week. And you get monster bragging rights!

Do you believe me? You shouldn’t, because this is just one more bizarre dream I’ve had in a long line of dreams I tend to have as a result of seeing or hearing things before my head hits the pillow.

How this dream came to be:

1. I watched a show on the Travel Channel called Extreme Pig Outs, wherein some pub makes a 15lb. (6.8kg) cheeseburger and if anyone manages to eat it, they get their name on a plaque and eat free at the establishment for the rest of their lives.

2. I fell asleep watching an episode of Gilmore Girls, wherein daughter Rory announces she wants to go to Harvard.

3. I watched the Kentucky Derby, wherein longshot Mine That Bird stole the race at 50-1 odds and paid $103.20 on a two dollar bet. A trifecta win paid a whopping $41,500.60.

It’s possible my next post will be about me writing a post about a dream I had that led to writing a post. Or maybe after reading this, you will.

Stumble it!