So you all came back, which is good, because we were getting lonely. Not forlorn, you understand, because that would be rather pitiful. Lame, even, to use a word that is so much in vogue.

(No, not the magazine. Does it still exist? Or has it gone out of vogue?)

 I don’t want to be awkward (to use another word so much in vogue), but it’s good to see you back. Without you, we pretty were much forced to just sit around and contemplate the great questions of life. Yeah, I know — pretty lame.

Such great questions as, why does ice float? (Because Kurt Vonnegut told it to. Just trust me on this one.) Or, how does a thermos know how to keep hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold? Or, who’s going to vomit on the Ped Mall now that all the college kids are gone? (We drew straws on that one.)

But no, really, we’re glad you’re back. For one thing, this means football can’t be far behind. (Oh, yeah, I forgot; you guys don’t dig football anymore. I’ll tell you a secret, if you promise not to tell: I don’t really dig football, either, and I used to play it.)

Although I am puzzled — what in the world happened to the Hawkeye football ticket sales?

Apparently, it’s the same across the Big Ten, according to reports, anyway. What’s up? You don’t want to see really huge guys try to make hash of each other? You got something against hash?

Speaking of the national game — football, not contemplating the great questions of life — the nickname of the Washington NFL team bubbles up from time to time in the social construct of our times (not to use the word “time” several times in one sentence).

Actually, I know why the Washington NFL team’s nickname is what it is.

Unfortunately, the Boston Red Sox didn’t call themselves the Boston Green Sox. If they had, the Boston Braves NFL team, which moved from the baseball Braves’ park to Red Sox’s Fenway in the early 1930s and renamed itself, that NFL team (which later moved to Washington, D.C.) would have been known as the Boston Greenskins, and there’d be no controversy about the team’s nickname.

Well, except perhaps among the leprechauns.

Which exist only in the sense that Rep. Steve King and Rep. Michele Bachmann have minds.

We gutted House Speaker John Boehner’s immigration bill, Bachmann crowed to the news media after House conservatives did just that shortly before the August adjournment — nice cojones, Boehner; that’s what made you a leader: tremendous knowledge of Spanish.

The Bachmann-King rewrite of the House bill, while exciting the tea-party base, probably means the GOP can kiss the Latino vote goodbye (the fastest-growing demographic in the country) for at least the next 10 years. Good forward thinking. Or any other kind of thinking. Not that Bachmann or King have ever been exalted for either.

See what happens when you’re gone? We start contemplating the great questions of life and wind up at Michele Bachmann and Steve King.

Which means we’re back at the great questions. Such as, if the words “lame,” “awkward,” and “like” didn’t exist, could 20-somethings converse?

Well, of course. That’s why we’re glad you’re back.