EPTI live in "the coffin." It's a room on the second floor and was initially designed to be a bathroom but was later converted to a bedroom. There are no windows, so anybody can sleep in here at any time of day. Its not unusual for me to walk in and see somebody passed out on the couch. I've got two roommates. Theres a picture of one of the guys who lived here last year and his gf, we found it when we moved in so we set it up so everybody who enters sees it. My roommate was going to cut out a picture of his face and paste it over where the girl's but we haven't gotten around to it. The guy in the picture is this asian guy with a big smile on his face (he was adopted from south korea). When you see the picture and his goofy smile you just know the guy is charismatic, and hes pretty beloved here by everybody who knows him. We get asked so many times why that picture is there that instead of explaining everything I just did, we'll just say he's our hero and secretly chuckle to each other (he is NOT our hero lol). Anyway this room has a lot more I can say about it but I'll get to that later.
I go to a college of ~5,000 people, so its small enough that everybody knows everybody through friends, but big enough that you don't have to know if you don't want. My fraternity is ~50 guys, so for our campus we're pretty mid-sized. We used to be smaller but I had a big role in turning that around I'm really proud of. I'll write about that at some later point. I'll explain something about this campus: if you want to party, you either have to be a girl or be in a fraternity. There are houses of guys that pop up from time to time which function as mini-fraternities and live off the charisma of the residents until they graduate, but these are rare. I still don't get "partying," I hate open parties. Lots of douche bags. I probably get a slanted view on this because our open parties probably attract all the people greek organizations wouldn't take. But I love parties with my fraternity, we're all friends getting drunk together and then you throw bitchy women into the mix at some point--hilarity always ensues.
The purpose of my fraternity is, in a nut shell, to give a bunch of guys a place to get drunk and meet women safely. We have a kick-ass clubhouse to do it in and the process is formalized. We call these "mixers," when we have a party with another sorority or (women's swim team!?). But the whole point is cultivating a lifestyle where the entire thing is a party, and it is really, really fun. I feel kind of off-put explaining this on a forum where I've read so many nerd vs jock blogs, and I don't feel like fighting all the stereotypes about greek organizations portrayed in "off-to-college" movies and tv. These stereotypes come from somewhere, but by and large--they're a joke. Or at least, we are. We all go "what's up, bro" and "lets go get swoll" to each other, "hey man you wanna bro out?" but every time we say that its with a wink and smirk. If somebody picks up on that, we like them. If they don't, its fun to mess with them.
Over half the guys in the frat have girlfriends, which kind of makes us lame to other sororities right now. Most of the guys they'd want to hook up with are already taken or leave earlier in the night. This has kind of given us a reputation as being notoriously mediocre, we're fun but nothing too wild. I wonder what would happen if suddenly we were all single again and drunkenly thrown into a room full of women. That would be a shit-show lol. But anyway last Saturday was the Champagne Campaign. It's a "date party," you find a date and stick with them throughout the night. You and your date both get a bottle of champagne each and you have to finish it. For guys, this isn't a big deal. We need a lot of alcohol on top of that. For girls, though, they're small and are given one container of alcohol for the night. Its like an unwritten, unspoken unrealized law that if you get a bottle of champagne bought for you, you need to finish it. So all these ~120 pound women are finishing way more than they'd usually drink quicker than they'd usually do it. I'll tell the story of that night
My gf and I have been going out for..between 1-2 months. For valentines day we decided to get each other white elephant gifts. I was walking through wal-greens one day and saw this little box with fuzzy handcuffs in it. I was really excited, but when I got into line there was a dad with two little girls asking questions about everything in front of me so I tried my best to hide it to help him avoid an awkward conversation lol. I'm pretty sure the dad saw what I was buying though because he glared at me for a good 20 seconds while I pretended not to notice. A new register opened up so I was able to get away from them. When the cashier guy saw what I was buying he kind of looked at me, but I was really excited. "I'm so glad I found these." he smiled, chuckled a little, and wished me a happy valentines day before I left. Oh, today will be..
Anyway, for $5.99 + tax I got fuzzy handcuffs, a blindfold, two dice where one is a body part and the other an action, a really cheesy do-not-disturb door handle (which I am totally using) and this little wand with a red fuzzy cotton ball at the end. I'm not sure what this last thing is for but I call it my spanking stick. Well I had all this ready to go for valentines day by saturday at 6:00. By 9, we'd started drinking. Girls were trickling in and I walked around the house with two shot glasses and some vodka taking and giving shots where I saw it was appropriate. My gf was at a talent show and coming over after it was done so I had time to kill. I ended up playing beer die--
I'm going to take a moment to describe drinking games. I didn't like them or understand them for a good year, but then something clicked and I fell in love with them. Its similar to starcraft, you start a game on bnet and you're in it to win it. I love beer pong and beer die. Most of you probably know what these are but TL has a strong international presence so I'll explain anyway.
Beer pong is where you set up cups at either end of a ping pong table, fill them with beer, then take turns throwing ping pong balls back and forth. If the ball goes in, you drink. If you get rid of all your opponents cups, you win and take the next challenger. Games are usually played with teams but sometimes 1v1's or 1v2's happen. Beer die is where you take 4 cups, fill them with beer and put them at each corner of a rectangular table. You throw a die up in the air and try to land it on the opponents side, bounce off and hit the ground. If it does that, you get a point. If they catch it 1-handed no trapping its no point. If it hits their cup, they take a drink, no point. If it goes in their cup its a point and they have to finish the cup, and if it misses or stays on the table shooting team takes a drink.
Drinking games are so much more fun when you put pride on the line. These games get cut-throat, its life or death, and its really fun. Crazy unlikely things always seem to happen and its amazing if you and your opponent are good. I like them so much I'll get girls to play with me just so I can play and I usually care more about the game than them. If they suck, I get mad at them. I don't know if you've ever 2v2'd with friends who aren't serious about sc, and you always get put with the worst person because you're the best player, then you lose anyway because 2 good players > 1 great player and 1 awful player. When you lose and you see your teammate has had 20 minutes to do whatever he wanted and he's 1-base with a battlecruiser, and for some reason his scvs have +1 armor--that the kind of frustration I feel when these girls suck.
I forgot what I was typing about. So anyway I run out of vodka and start playing beer die. First to 5 points wins, win by 2. Me and my partner just aren't warmed up or something and we're playing a guy who for some reason decided to bring 5 dates. I completely understand getting women to compete for you, but the point of Champagne Campaign is for couples. Pretty much everybody in the fraternity managed to find a date so we don't need extra women. So we're playing this guy and one of his dates, he keeps getting up and talking and taking forever. He's the worst partner ever, one of those guys, if you know what I'm talking about. I decide he's gonna wait for us instead and run upstairs to take another shot. I offer and my partner comes too, we do a shot and then run back downstairs. It was 4-2, and through a series of amazing throws and diving catches we pull it even 4-4. We're shooting back and forth, diving all over the place and its 5-4, then my teammate makes a diving catch, throws it to me before he hits the ground and I throw up the die and my shot lands barely on their side of the table, bounces backwards and the other guy dives for it and he hits the ground and the die falls just beyond his fingertips. There was celebrating
My big suddenly opens the door and hes holding like $30 of balloons. In my fraternity we have a mentor system where you get a "big brother," but I've heard them called "pledge dads" and a variety of other things I can't recall. My big is on the Student Activities Board for school, and our SAB is good. They got Ben Folds to come and tickets were only $7. Well hes holding all these balloons from the talent show, a huge string of them with 2 bricks at either end. He shouts "Hey kurtis (not my real name but I'm not using any real names ever in this post) come help!" I run out, grab a brick and and we walk in the middle of the party with a 25 foot string of helium balloons. We bring it down into the basement, set it up as an entrance to the stage where all the dancing takes place but after getting some opinions we put it on the bar.
This entire time I've been ignoring my phone, so I check it and my gf asked what time it started 2 hours ago. Whoops. I tell her it started and to wear something nice. I just assumed that champagne = formal dress, but it didnt occur to me to tell her so she starts running around campus trying to find a dress. I tell her specifically what one I want her to wear to save time SO 45 minutes later shes finally ready to go. Jeese.
She walks in, I grab her and run upstairs. I have 2 things prepared for tonight, I put ice in ziploc bags and put them in an old briefcase I found and lay 2 bottles of sprite + peach schnapps in it artfully. Its my boozecase, always something new in it every week. I like to have it ready just in case, as often happens, I end up in my room with a lot of women and a hopeful guy or two. I leave it kind of out of the way but still visible so eventually somebody asks what it is. I won't say a word, go over grab it, lay it down on the table carefully. theres something magical about opening a briefcase, so by this point everybody in the room is always watching to see what will happen, and so I open it up and theres liquor with a bunch of chilled shot glasses. This one was specifically for my roommate who's turned down at least one proposition a weekend this entire year. I don't get it, but w/e...he finally invited a gal over and I'll be damned if they weren't going to sleep together.
but the other thing I had was two bottles of champagne with fuzzy handcuffs around them. I tell her she's getting part of her valentines day present early, pull out the champagne and just watch her face. She gets embarrassed about everything so when she saw them I know she liked it, but she was embarrassed and turned bright red and tried to hide that she liked it which made her even more cute. I took her arm, put them on and went downstairs to shoot the caps off our bottles. (can't take handcuffs off until the bottles are finished)
this post is getting long so I'll summarize the rest of the night. I set up a pong table, we hold it for a while despite me not being able to shoot with my good hand, we wander around, talk with people and slowly kill our bottles. I don't know how it always happens but whenever I open up the door to my room people appear. The entrance isn't really..there, you know, its on the 2f at the end of a hallway, but me and my gf end up there and suddenly theres 3 other couples in the room. Somebody asks about my briefcase, one thing leads to another and at this point everybody is really good and drunk. I don't remember what happens, we go downstairs and dance for a while in the basement. The basement is perfect, theres a large bar against one wall, a large stage on the other, blacklights in the ceiling and I don't know what its called--a disco system, where colored lights move around the room. We have a huge brand new speaker system, and all along the walls are years of murals, signs, banners, road signs (I'm responsible for a stop sign and a one-way sign) and a school scoreboard we managed to get in a surplus auction. Usually have to hide the control switches because someone always gets obnoxious with the buzzer. Theres also poles supporting the house all over, which is really convenient.
So we dance a while and go back upstairs to my room (more like I carry her). We get in, get up into my bed (I have the most comfortable bed at my school) and I have to explain something else. I sleep on a bunk bed with a really solid wooden frame. I get the top, and one of my roommates gets the bottom. The bottom has curtains which close it off and a light somebody jury-rigged on the inside, we call it the man-cave. My and my gal get up into my bed and realize my roommate is beneath us, and so is his date. They start fucking and she gets really, really vocal. It sounded like a porn star being overenthusiatic, me and my gf start laughing. later my roommate tells me he could barely keep a straight face.
The best way to describe this is the next day at meeting, near the end we have a compliments/complaints section where we compliment or bitch at people. "I would like to compliment my roommate busy on the bottom bunk while I was busy on the top." I would also like the complain about the lack of high-fiving.
Well I learn later he wanted to go dance, asks her then his date pushes him against a wall and starts making out with him. hes like "ok" then she marches up to our room and basically throws him in bed. Then we come in. So shes on the bottom bunk groaning, I'm on the top bunk and I start imitating her really loud noises and soon we're all giggling. Then somebody knocks on the door, and I remember I invited another couple in for a slumber party because my other roommate is gone and he has this massive bed. We were going to build pillow forts but that'll happen some other night. Well they knock for a while but I'm not getting up so they leave. I'm still trying to think of a name for this experience, where two couples are fucking on the top and bottom bunks, so let me know if you think of a good one.
We all woke up the next morning feeling like shit. My roomate's date apparently didn't remember the night before (uh-oh) but then when she realizes where she is she starts cuddling really hard with roommate. Apparently for her, mission accomplished. I think they might start dating soon.
The campaign was successful.
If any of you have questions about any aspect of greek life I'm happy to answer them and/or confirm/deny any conceptions you might have. I'll be typing stories as they come. This post ended up pretty long so thats it for tonight
