The high spirits of winning the Male-Manual game for the third year in a row were dampened somewhat by the news that over half of the student body had contracted the same form of mononucleosis. Evidence pointed to a single vuvuzela, passed around the student section throughout the game.

The plastic horn, known for its loud monotone, belonged to an unidentified student, who allowed anyone who asked to play it to do so. One person who played the vuvuzela, apparently, was a carrier of mono, and the disease was passed along to everyone who blew the horn after.

“It’s very easy for diseases to spread in this manner,” said Dr. Muhammad Lee, the University of Louisville’s resident expert on student section diseases. “Infected saliva from just one person can be inadvertently ingested by large numbers of people. Vuvuzelas are the worst — they’re just the right mixture of fun and annoying that everyone wants to blow them. I always tell people, Vuvuzelas . . . not even once.”

Most of the sickened students did not mind their new illness. “I wear my variant of the herpes virus with pride,” Paul Baylor (11) said. “We are merely sick, but the Bulldogs are dead. Go Rams!”

“I’m not actually sure it was the Vuvuzela that gave me mono,” Tyler Kissinger (12) said. “I was so happy after we scored that last goal that I kissed the dude next to me. Maybe that was it. But whatever.”

“I believed that we will win!” Lizzy Spielberg (9) said. “And then I got mono.”

Several students were sent to the hospital for observation, where other patients reported a rousing rendition of “Stand Up and Cheer” at 3 a.m. When the patients protested, they heard only “THIS IS OUR HOUSE” and claps.

This is a satirical article and is meant to be read as such. All names are invented and are not intended to represent specific Manual students or situations.