Best response to "Go Blue" from stranger?

Submitted by EGD on

A friend of mine who recently moved to the Bay Area raised an interesting question this week: 

Fellow Michigan alums - Is there a standard response to being told "Go Blue!" by a stranger when they see you/your kid/your car in Michigan gear? I feel like there should be some sort of "'peace be with you'...'and also with you'" sort of call-and-answer, but I'm always caught off guard. And it's happening *a lot* since we moved to the Bay Area...

This seemed like the best place for her to get some good answers, so I agreed to post it for her.  Until she asked me, I would have said my usual response is to repeat "Go Blue" back to the person in a firmer tone and ever-so-slightly louder voice.  But from now on I'm going with alaikum salaam.

ppudge

May 1st, 2015 at 6:53 PM ^

I was in DC over spring break with the kids and probably had about 20 "Go Blues" when I was wearing my Michigan sweatshirt. I was usually caught off guard and either failed to respond (joggers go by fast) or gave a "Yeah, you know it" type response. So yeah, some universal etiquette on this would be awesome!

PA_Blue

May 1st, 2015 at 6:58 PM ^

I actually passed DJ Durkin in the Philly airport on Wednesday and I wanted to give him a "Go Blue" but for some reason I got a case of the yips and chickened out.

bjk

May 2nd, 2015 at 1:15 AM ^

 

the html for "line break."

The subject line doesn't accept html and consequently renders html tags as literals.

I suspect you have to select "plain text editor" to get html tags to work  On the other hand, it is difficult to get an html tag such as <br> to show as a literal in the body of the text without switching to "rich text editor"; in plain text mode, this requires a complicated expression the sytax for which I forget.

Everyone Murders

May 1st, 2015 at 7:03 PM ^

Best response I ever got?  Well, you're going to have to go back to 1924. 

I was walking through a neighborhood in Poughkeepsie - a slum really - and this dame comes up to me, you see?  So this dame, she eyeballs the block M bowler hat I got on, and I notice she's got some tasteful block M rhinestone earrings on.

So I sez "Go Blue" and tips my hat.  She crosses her legs, looks me straight in the eye, and sez "Go Blue yerrseelf".  We laugh, and stroll over to a blind pig I knew about.  Ahhh, she had starlight in her eyes, smoke in her hair, and bourbon on her breath.  She was perfect.

Well, the bourbon ended up being rotgut, and I ended up in the hospital with kidney stones. So this dame, you see, ends up being admitted to the same hospital, and I see her at the lobby on the way out.  She looks down, real ashamed-like, see.  And I cough out a little blood, rub it into the floor and say "Go Blue."

And then, the dame sez "I love you."  And that's how I met your great-grandmother.  Now go to bed!

DealerCamel

May 1st, 2015 at 7:27 PM ^

I got a "Go blue!" in California once and I turned, enthusiastically pumped my fist straight out and gave a hearty, "HAIL!"

...I do not recommend doing this in a crowded urban area.

Bando Calrissian

May 1st, 2015 at 7:32 PM ^

I've had a few people sort of walk past then turn around when they realized what happened. You get the Go Blue on the flipside.

I've also gotten the blank stare, as if someone either doesn't realize they wore a Michigan shirt that day, or that the M on their hat stood for something other than the letter M.

Got a Go Blue out of a guy at the Dead Sea in Israel, though. I figure anyone wearing a Michigan Basketball shirt in the depths of the tournament drought had to know exactly what they were doing.