When I found out the VICE editors would be coming to Lincoln to work with The DailyER, I knew they would want to do something wild. Previous VICE columns featured their staffers eating three pounds of sugar-free gummy bears and staying up all night for performance art.

The VICE editors wanted to do something local, and Runza is as common in Lincoln as PBR and stupid moustaches are in Brooklyn, where VICE is based. We got a load of stares in the Union as I unwrapped runza after runza.

Eventually, they got me into the Lil Red suit. I planned on running around in it and getting sick from all the runzas, but the VICE guys said that that “wasn’t edgy enough.”

The VICE editors said they wanted me to wear the Lil Red suit to a Libertarian Party convention, but that seemed a too far for me. So, we compromised on my riding the rails.

I got a lot of stares on the freight trains while I was living as a hobo. It’s not every day that hobos see a life-sized Lil Red across the boxcar from them, but we made it work.

It was hard living as a hobo because a lot of those guys make their living doing odd jobs and manual labor. It’s really tough to do work on a farm while you’re wearing a Lil Red mascot costume.

There were times when I ran out of money and thought about taking off the suit and heading home.

But no matter how hard it got, I spent the whole three months riding the rails. By some stroke of luck I finally got back to Lincoln.

I’m hoping the VICE guys will finally give me that internship they mentioned in December. Someone might want to wash that Lil Red suit, too.