One of my jobs at the congregation where I go to church is helping with the records for membership and finance. This often requires those of us who work together on this assignment to bring our laptop computers. Two men in the office went to rival universities, and the two men have their own humorous rivalry every fall.  The two schools are playing football against each other this week in what looks to be a hard-fought, close-scoring game.

One school is represented by a red U, and the other’s symbol is a blue Y. With the game coming up this week, it was no surprise when, a week ago Sunday, Mr. Y came in with a sheet of blue Y stickers to put on everything. Of course, the first place he put one was on Mr. U’s laptop.

Mr. U had just stepped out to visit with someone, and when he came back, he could see we were all grinning. He immediately became suspicious and started looking at all of his personal property. It wasn’t long before he spotted the sticker on the back of his computer.

“Ah! What have you done?”

Mr. Y laughed. “I just upgraded your computer for you.”

“Are you kidding me?” Mr. U said. “You have just made it so it will totally malfunction. And weren’t you a scout leader?”

“What has that got to do with anything?” Mr. Y asked.

I thought Mr. U was going say that a scout is honest, but he didn’t.

“As a scout leader, you should have had to do the youth protection training,” Mr. U said. “I think you need to go back and retake it and pay special attention to the part about not touching underage computers.”

For the rest of the day, Mr. Y kept sneaking stickers onto everything Mr. U owned whenever Mr. U turned his attention elsewhere. He ended up with one on his notepad, his computer bag, and even on his computer mouse. Mr. U started taking all his things with him whenever he had to go even the shortest distance out of the office, because if he didn’t, it would end up with a sticker on it.

As we finished for the day, we gathered our coats to head out into the freezing weather. There was a big Y sticker on Mr. U’s coat.

“I can’t believe that even the sanctity of one’s apparel is being violated by that ugly thing,” he said. “Well, two people can play that game.”

The big game is this Saturday, so Sunday was an even bigger sticker rivalry. Mr. U came prepared to counterattack. He hadn’t been able to peel off the Y sticker from his laptop, so he had covered it over with a U one. It quickly had another Y one on top of that. Mr. U put another over that and added one to Mr. Y’s computer. Mr. Y covered the sticker on his laptop with one of his own. Soon, both men had multiple stickers on their computers layered many layers deep.

Eventually, the rivalry spilled outside the office. As either of the two found a place to put a sticker, they would take a picture to send to the rest of us. Or, if they discovered the opposing team sticker on one of their things, they would send a picture to comment on it.

At one point, Mr. Y found a big U bumper sticker on his car. He took a picture and sent it to us. “Look at my car,” he said. “It just dropped $3000 in value.”

“Ha, I don’t think so,” Mr. U responded. “It is now a classic car.”

By the time we left, they had finally called a truce. But the compromise was, whoever is on the side of the losing team must keep the opposing team’s sticker on their computer for an entire year.

It would be funny if the teams tied, and they both had to sport the opposing team’s sticker.