Life > March 20, 2008

By Austin H. Jones | Staff columnist

Spring Break is a time for relaxation and freedom and a chance to get a breath of fresh air amid the stifling day-to-day life of a student.

And when I decided to go on a service trip to the Dominican Republic with Emmaus, I was expecting a very tangible change of pace and scenery.

Not only was it a change of scenery environment-wise, but there was a unique element to a few select guests staying with us at the Dominican Fiesta Hotel.

Let’s just say they wore a lot more bronzer and banana hammocks (for those of you who aren’t familiar with this slang term for Speedo briefs, I apologize; the first time you hear it puts an awful visual in your mind, but don’t worry; everyone experiences it).

Anyway, these fellas were apparently from different places all around the world and the winner of the competition gets the title “Mr. Universe Model” (my friend looked up the official name).

All we knew at the time, though, was that they were, in our opinion, the prettiest of pretty boys in the entire universe. At any given moment, each participant must have had at least a bucket of hair gel on, but ironically that had no hair at all anywhere else because they had zero body hair whatsoever.

If you could fill the Joel Coliseum with hair wax, these guys would go through it in about a week – and there were only about 10 of them. They scoured every inch of their body, removing every trace of hair. A few of them got a little carried away and went ahead and waxed their eyebrows as well.

Despite the absolute ridicule that all of us were giving them behind their perfectly sculpted backs, they still commanded a lot of respect from the hotel staff.

I tried to walk into the hotel after playing soccer with my shirt off, and a fella at the door stopped me and told me to put my shirt on.

Meanwhile, as I was standing there putting my shirt on, Mr. Italy Model Antonio Savarese, who was wearing nothing but a pair of soaking wet tighty whities, passed right through the miniature security checkpoint and got on the elevator.

I didn’t fight the injustice of it all, though, because his tush looked really good, and those things are not very thickly woven.

These guys were in better shape than ninjas, and the best part of it all was that at any time that we wanted to go to the pool, we could count on at least three of them being there, lounging about in their weenie bikinis. One afternoon a flock of them jumped in the pool, giggling and splashing water at each other.

The whole ordeal reminded me of the gasoline fight in Zoolander. Unfortunately, gas was a little more than five bucks a gallon down there, so the chances of them blowing themselves up were about as slim as their 26-inch waists.

One of them came close to drowning, though, and we tried to make sure the lifeguard didn’t notice until it was too late by saying the hot-tub was clogged.

Sadly enough, all of them came out alive. But, seeing as there can only be ONE greatest model in the universe (kind of a preposterous claim, seeing as none of the Mr. Saturn Model or Mr. Neptune Model winners were invited), hundreds of baby-faced, stiff-haired, oily, foreign men had their hearts broken by Mr. Spain. I think he won the judges over with his patriotic banana basket; or maybe it was his lack of eyebrows.