February 14, 2013 marked the date of the first ever University of Arizona Kiss Off. Couples participated in this Kiss Off competition (and I don’t mean a make-out contest) to win various prizes from iPod touches, iPod shuffles, and smaller prizes, such as headphones. Instead of a make-out fest taking place at the UA Mall, couples took on an intense task; kissing an iPod box between each other for about two hours.
“For Valentine’s Day the University of Arizona bookstores wanted to express their appreciation to the students, we decided to throw a little competition where the students would be participating in a series of challenges where they will be kissing a box between them,” said Mike Gary, Sales Specialist of the Technology Center of the UA Bookstore.
The winners of the competition received two iPod touches and the second place couple received iPod shuffles. The Kiss Off played out like this: for the first forty-five minutes, the competition solely revolved around kissing the box between each other. The couples had the option of holding onto each other as support. For the next half hour, they had to kiss the box between them with hands at their sides. For the following fifteen minutes, they had to continue kissing the box with their hands raised above shoulder level. Finally the last fifteen minutes consisted of the couples having to raise their hands above shoulder level and stand on their left foot.
Many factors made this competition tough from the sunny Tucson weather (hopefully all the couples wore sunscreen) to the lengthy amount of the time that came along with participating. One major difficulty was “the length of time it lasts”, said Kiss Off participants Austin Pile and Saige Williams. The reason why this couple had to leave the competition was due to needing to attend class. However, these factors did not apply to the winning couple who are now proud owners of brand new iPod touches. Congratulations to Kate Flagg and Nico Franco!