It’s February, you know what that means! Well, maybe you don’t but, you should. February is when the annual Yamfam Dodgeball Tournament takes place. During this time, the staff gets to take out all of their aggression on each other with small red spheres and no consequences! But this isn’t just any dodgeball tournament, it only happens once a year, and the Yamfam has some interesting rituals they perform to guarantee a good game.
First in line is staff editor Aveline Chocolat. Aveline has won a few times since she came aboard, and she’s positive she’ll win again this year. In an interview with her, she said, “I’ve tried throwing my highly trained mongooses at players before during the game, but it always ends up with someone in the hospital and taking care of medical bills is above my pay grade.” We’re not sure how this relates to her preparation for the tournament, but we can appreciate she is no longer launching live animals at her staff. Instead, she now takes a four and a half hour money bath in 100 dollar bills only. She quotes that she is “basking in her wealth”.
Following up, our next member of the Yamfam is our copy editor, Josephine Dupuis. Now, Josephine doesn’t quite have a tradition like the rest. Instead, she has a good luck charm, her Statue of Liberty crown. Josephine is confident that if she wears her good luck charm to bed the night before the tournament, and during, she’s guaranteed to win. She finds that her green foam crown will give her the strength nobody else will have and she’ll take home this year’s trophy.
Moving on to staff writer Karletta Higgins. Many of Karletta’s co-workers find that her tradition is oddly confusing and interesting, judging by the fact that she’s missed every tournament because of it. The night before every tournament, Karletta tries to steal the Gettysburg Address like she once succeeded at capturing the Declaration of Independence. Karletta is confident that this year will be different and she will be resilient like once before to secure the scroll. If Karletta succeeds she will have to actually learn to play dodgeball.
Staff writer Johnny A. Mcfree is a four-time dodgeball tournament champion, and he insists every win has been an accident. Johnny has no one tradition, for every year he lets something accidentally happen the day before. He starts the day before the tournament every year by accidentally taking the stairs down 576 floors of his Ohio apartment building. From there he walks around and waits for something to accidentally happen to him. This year the Yamfam has guessed he will accidentally skip down the 576 flights of stairs the day before, and be too sore to compete the next day.
Unlike Johnny, staff writer and photographer Katrina Aimée Naimes plans everything in her life near perfectly. Katrina, being a former escape artist, plans a kidnapping of herself by hired professionals the night before the tournament. Katrina must escape the kidnapping and find her way to the tournament in order to compete. So far she hasn’t missed a year yet. She also hasn’t won a year yet, but that’s not what this is about.
Staff writer and social media co-manager Agatha Smoot not only has a tradition, but she performs her tradition every day of the year. It’s no secret that Agatha is an all-star butter churner, in fact, she’s found a way to make butter churning her whole personality. Agatha doesn’t go a day without churning fresh butter and doesn’t see why she should change her tradition for a once-a-year dodgeball tournament. Agatha quotes “Eat, sleep, and churn butter.” Last year she was even caught bringing her butter churner to the courts during halftime, she served all of her co-workers fresh butter and bananas.
Tretyakov Dmitriy (Dima) Stepanovich, staff writer and social media co-manager to Yampage holds a concert as her tradition. She holds the concert alone while live streaming on Twitch at her hand-built log cabin in the Adirondacks. One of the Yampage writers shares with us that once someone found her IP address and showed up at her concert, they were never heard from again. Oh yeah, and we forgot to mention, the whole concert is dedicated to her precious bagpipe. She would like us to include the link to her concert, so if you’d like to hear some hip-hop bagpiping click here.
Staff writer Margret Tangerine is the only member of the Yamfam with no real tradition. Margret is so confident in her dodgeball skills, she feels she needs no preparation. However, judging by the fact that she hasn’t won a single match, her co-workers disagree with her. “Stick to acting and writing, Tangerine, you have the athletic skills of a two-toed sloth,” says an anonymous source.
Next up is staff writer Digby Thanoscar. Digby has a tradition most would call interesting in preparation for a dodgeball tournament. Digby and his mentee, Simon Cowell, rent a gingerbread house on the marshmallow river for a week leading up to the tournament. However, many criticize Digby for this tradition because of the number of times he’s missed the tournament. Digby says, “Rowing across a river of marshmallow fluff is harder than you think, I blame the traffic.” We’re hopeful that this year he will be prominent in showing up since he plans to return home a day earlier than usual.
Last but certainly not least, we have staff writer Reginald Thumbington III. Reginald believes his tradition should benefit everyone. That is the exact reason Reginald spends the seven months leading up to the tournament making bow ties to add to the staff’s uniforms. Reginald starts his work in July and is always precise in finishing the ties before the tournament. He has never missed a tie or a tournament in all of his years of work. Afterwards, he asks the staff for their used bowties back to add to his growing color coordinated collection of them.
The Yamfam sure has some interesting traditions. You can tune into the tournament on an undecided date by clicking your heels three times and following the yellow brick road.
