Monday Motivation with Mike the Tiger: Stay Focused on What Matters Most

People. This is an emergency. Since Saturday, around nightish, something really bad has happened. My Snacks seem … sadder? And I am super bummed for y’all about the whole Florida thing, because it’s been distracting you from what is really important.

Look, I know I can be a little … TIGER-Y sometimes. It can be hard to take someone this beautiful, this majestic, this perfect, seriously, so y’all just pretend I have a fake mutant shark mask on or something.

Better?

Here is the Honest To Mike Truth: A lot of those folks who are gnashing their teeth and acting like the world has ended and LSU’s never going to win another game and those two wins over Top 10-ranked team were flukes and Coach O should’ve never not been on the Hot Seat and The Season is Over?

THEY NEVER LIKED US ANYWAY.

My snacks, if I have learned anything in my short life, it’s that some folks are just freaking miserable. And the second you shine a little too brightly and start to prove them wrong? They are just ITCHING too knock you down a few pegs.

So, when you lose to Florida (which, side note, STAY SAFE IN THE HURRICANE MY FLORIDA FAN FRIENDS, I WANT YOU ALL AROUND FOR THE TRIP TO BATON ROUGE NEXT YEAR), they get it in their stupid people brains that they were right and that you are terrible and HAHA AREN’T THEY SO SMART.

Y’all.

(I say y’all now.)

I don’t get up every damn morning to be worshipped by a fan base that believes DUMB STUFF people say when they are MAD about having lost.

Like, did you forget what really matters here?

Does Mike think you’ll beat the Georgia Puppies next week? SURE. Why the hell not! Are they ranked higher than us? Yes. Does everything think we’re going to lose? NO. Because MIKE THE TIGER believes we are going to send those kennel-loving, bone-sniffing, no-stripe-having, WHO CHEERS FOR GEORGIA ANYWAY, not even cute, canines right back to Athens, THANKYOUVERYMUCH.

Pack your Thunder Shirts, Ugas. Because MY SNACKS are gonna show up and scream and yell and be so loud that you’re going to want to hide in your memory foam dog bed, or wherever it is that you sleep. (Who has a pet animal as a mascot anyway? So uncreative. Except for Reveille, obviiiiii.)

And all of this FOOTBAW has distracted y’all from what is truly imPAWtant.

Like Al Pacino once said ...

I don’t know what to say really. Five days to the biggest dinner of my life. It all comes down to Saturday. ... either you feed me opposing teams’ fans, as a group.

Or I’m going to crumble and starve.

Snack by Snack.

Fan by Fan.

I am in hell, right now, gentlesnacks.

Believe me.

And I can stay here, and eat the food that they prepare for me, or I can fight my way back into the light.

::dramatic, hypnotic music gets louder::

I CAN CLIMB OUT OF HUNGER.

ONE SNACK, AT A TIME.

I can’t do it for you.

I’m too Tigery. (And stuck in here.)

But I look around at all these young snacks and I think, is this the week y’all finally feed me an opposing team’s fan?

I mean, I made every wrong choice a young Tiger could make.

I uh ... pissed off my PR team at the Vet School, believe it or not.

I chased off

All of the LSU fans who might let me eat them

And lately,

I can’t even stand the stripes I see in my reflection pool.

You know, when you get olde in life, things get taken away from you.

That, that’s part of dinner.

But, you only learn that when they start warning your snacks that you might try to eat them.

You find out that life is just a game of dinners.

So is football.

Because in either game, dinner or football, the margin of error is so small.

I mean, one lunge toward a small child too late or too early,

And you don’t quite eat it.

On scrape at a student trainer too slow or too fast,

and you don’t quite catch it.

The snacks I want to eat are everywhere around me.

They are in every group huddled outside of my home, every passing car, every LSU Vet Med hat.

IN THIS CAGE, ...er HABITAT, WE FIGHT FOR THAT SNACK

And my fans, they will tear themselves, and everyone around them to pieces to bring me a snack.

WE CLAW WITH OUR … CLAWS … FOR THAT SNACK.

Cause I know

When I add up all those Georgia snacks

That’s going to make the freaking difference

Between Mike’s GUMBO and JAMBALAYA

Between my ETOUFEE and POBOY

I’ll tell you this

In any fight, it is the LSU fan who is willing to go to jail for kidnapping

Who is going to deliver me my snack.

And I know

If I’m going to have any chance at eating an opposing team’s fan

It is because my fans are still willing to fight, and take a felony charge, to bring me my snack.

Because that’s what BEING AN LSU FAN is.

The six Georgia fans in front of your face. (Who you could feed to Mike.)

Now, I can’t make you do it.

You gotta look at the Georgia fan next to you.

Don’t look into his eyes. (It would be weird.)

Now, I think you’re going to see a guy who would be DELICIOUS served with a side of gravy

You are going to see a snack

Who you should sacrifice to Mike

Because you know he probably can’t outrun you anyway.

That’s my dinner, gentlesnacks.

And either you feed me Georgia fans now, as a team,

Or you’ll have to catch Mississippi State fans next week.

That’s dinner, guys.

That’s all it is.

Now, whattaya gonna do?

::dramatic music reaches its crescendo::

Sorry, I got a little dramatic there for a second.

You should not despair about losing to Florida, y’all.

Focus on what matters: finding me a suitable Georgia fan to eat. (Also: win the football game.)

Tick-tock,

Mike

P.S. And, yeah, a student trainer did show me Any Given Sunday this week, why do you ask?