So what's up with frats at Dartmouth? Every Sunday when I wake up I say to myself, "Self, you will not go to a frat next weekend ..."
So it's Friday night and I'm heading down frat row reciting Randall's update in my head, making a mental note to take Introductory Greek next term. As I slowly begin to lose all sensation in my extremities due to the negative wind chill factor, I spot my destination. Although my judgment is a little cloudy, I swear the line forming outside the frat looks longer to me than it would to an ant desperately trying to run the whole length of the Great Wall of China while carrying a brick on it's back. But being as slick as I am, I make my way to the front of the line and just as I'm about to charm the brother at the door by saying, "Hey, after a few more beers those side-burns won't look half as bad," I notice something hard pressed up against my nose and I realize it's a big red door. Or, maybe I won't get in this way.
So I'm on my hands and knees crawling through the bushes trying to find a back entrance to the frat. At last I see it. The light. The light that will lead me to the manifestation of the true meaning of a Dartmouth weekend -- a frat basement. As I walk in parched, I try to remove the branches from my hair and scope out the surroundings. But before I can even let the beer goggles kick in, Mr. 4.0 from my chem class accosts me and asks, "So, do you like this frat?" And I'm like, "Whatever, do you think I enjoy standing in a crowded, hot, disgusting basement covered with mung and bodily excrement while I force myself to drink something that tastes worse than hydrochloric acid, while a smell more foul than my dorm room after six months of EBA's boxes have collected in a corner permeates the air around me?" But instead I say, "Yep, this is one of my favorites."
So I'm on the dance floor and my eyes meet those of that gorgeous brother I've been trying to meet all term. I see him approaching me so I start busting a move in hopes of impressing him. He gets closer and closer until he's practically in my face and I think to myself, "Self, this is going to be a good night," to which he replies, "Excuse me, can you please move, I can't see my girlfriend." Maybe I should have stuck with Mr. 4.0.
So I'm in the middle of the dance floor -- alone. Luckily, just before I begin to look really pathetic dancing by myself to "Like A Virgin," God answers my prayers. The familiar sound of the fire alarm rings in my ears. Now at least I won't have to walk out alone. But can I say that looking for my jacket at the end of the night at a frat is like looking for the punch line in Bear Bones? I look and I look and I look but it's just not there. So I leave the frat alone, freezing, tired, smelly, alone, worn out, dejected, alone, drunk, and alone. But whatever, who am I kidding? Not going to a frat would be like sitting in the tower room all of exam week with an allergy to the dust that collects on old books while trying to stifle a sneeze for fear that lest I let it out everyone will turn around and look at me as though I were Satan himself ...
