Some Things Never Change

So most of these entry's have been from years ago. I like to have a little perspective on most of my misdeeds...tell the stories a few times to get the bugs out...fill in the blanks with some funny shit if necessary...smooth over the rough edges and make sure there's not too much egg on my face...you know, the usual.

Sometimes however, there comes a story that needs to be written down immediately. Sometimes a series of events occurs that is so inexplicable; so insane that it needs to be emblazoned on a page quickly before logic and reason seep into the fabric of the tale and distort it's sheer, unimaginable awesomeness.

Saturday marked the beginning of the 2009 College Football Season, and with it ushered in the Gene Chizik Era of Auburn Football. I am a big time Auburn fan and as such, could not miss the inaugural event. Thus, I journeyed back to my Alma Mater for the game. It has been said that one can never truly go home again. I totally agree, but...
You can damn sure try!

Saturday morning 9 am: After an evening that ended rather uneventfully, but nonetheless with a Super Club stamp and empty Styrofoam boxes that once contained Willies Wings and Stuff, I was awoken to the sound of a chorus of rabid Bamers and Hoakies led by none other than the coach himself, Mr. Lee Corso. Gameday was back! I quietly re-hydrated while Kirk and the boys broke it all down for me, patiently waiting for a sliver of news about my Tigers...none would come (turns out we're not supposed to be that good...not really news).

Saturday morning 11 am: Shower

Saturday morning 11:30 am: Arrive at the ole frat house and drop off my car, shoot the shit with some former acquaintances from a past life (while drinking their beer), pack up my booze and head across campus to meet my friend "Stormy." (hint: She's a weather girl)

Noon: Toomer's Lemonade meet Jim Beam...Jim Beam-Toomers Lemonade...good. Now that we're all acquainted, let's move down the esophagus to the belly where you will make me feel stronger, wittier and generally more attractive and capable. Thanks.

Noon: Liquor Check: 1-0.75liter bottle of Jim Beam
1o-Jim Beam Minni's

Noon-2pm: Stormy and I stroll leisurely through our old stomping grounds admiring the "progress" and lamenting our lack of collegiate eligibility. We finish the Toomer's and move to coke. We pick up two more friends. We'll call them Girl A and Boy B more on that later.

2:30 pm: Go to Momma G's on Thatch to watch the Georgia Game. I get a 32oz Coors light...I become moderately intoxicated.

At this point a little more explanation about the group is necessary. Stormy and I went to school together, I think of her as one of my best friends from college. I came down to Auburn to see her. However, she is more interested in making babies with Boy B (or at least practicing). Double however, she has also promised Girl A a super fantastic good time in Auburn...

Solution? Send Girl A off with an increasingly drunk ME and hope for the best.

Elegant solution? I think not.

4:30 pm: Head with Girl A to Tiger Walk. Try to remain coherent and charming despite the booze...I'm always playing the ambassador(it didn't hurt that she was pretty attractive). But I can tell that my antics are growing a little tiresome for her.

I'm not really worried about it.

Then I realize that the only reason that I wouldn't be worried about it was if I was too drunk. I decide to sober up a little.

5:30 pm: Enter Jorden-Hair Stadium with 8 Jim Beam Minni's. Operation "sober up" is a complete and total failure.

6pm-9:30 pm: Lucky for Girl A, Auburn played well...really well. Even QB "We Todd," as in "I'm Sofa King We Todd Did," looked good. This slowed my drunken "march" (I mean ramble) over the edge into oblivion considerably. In fact, when the game concluded, there were still two Minni's left.

9:31 pm: Both extra Minni's go in my drink as we walk to the bar.

9:45pm: Meet up with my host for the weekend, Jeff.

Jeff doesn't get a funny nickname.

10:30 pm: Stormy informs us that she will be retiring to a hotel room in Montgomery with Boy B. Girl A, sensing an imminent loss of control from yours truly, makes a wise decision to head back that way as well. That leaves me and Jeff with my friend Jim (Beam) to sort the rest of the night out.

Midnight: Bars are a bust. Jeff and I stumble into and out of several. I decide it's time to go home.

My car is at the fraternity house.

Sunday Morning 12:30 am: Arrive at the fraternity house and go use the bathroom before leaving. While there, a younger member who clearly doesn't study his composites starts to give me the stink eye for being in the house. What might have turned into an ugly little shouting match back in the day, ends with him offering me and Jeff a warm Keystone light and him showing me around my old home.

Maybe I have matured...

1 am: I am walking out the door when my tour guide introduces me to a kid from my hometown, when I left for college he was in middle school (we'll call him Andy Frat), now he's an officer in my old fraternity...my my my how the world does continue to turn.

4:00 am: Yep. That's right. It's 4:30 am and I'm still on the porch at the fraternity house. The only people awake are me, Jeff, my little brother (a senior in HS being rushed) and Andy Frat...and about 10 coke heads from the bottom hall. We have consumed every last drop of booze at the house. Seriously, we are all choking down some lime flavored monstrosity when it becomes apparent we are going to need more beer.

I have definitely NOT matured...

4:30 am: After finding most of the gas stations in town closed, we venture to Jeff's house where there is a case of bud light in the fridge...probably glowing with a heavenly aura. I am driving Andy Frat's Land Rover...poorly. I am speeding (15mph over the limit) down Glenn (that's a big no no you non-Auburnites) in front of the fucking Police Station.

Basically I shot a man in Reno...just to watch him die.

I see that cop pull a Uey and I know it is all over but the crying. I pull over and start to stitch my asshole together with binder's twine...I'm going to jail.

Finding a kind of zen that must only be possible from total absence of hope, I calmly explain to my passengers that I will not be accompanying them back to Jeff's and instructing them to please alert the proper individuals and try to set bail for me as soon as one of them is sober enough not to be arrested during the process. I explain that I will do my best to keep them from joining me in the slammer.

Mr. Copper Man comes to the window and we exchange pleasantries and discuss my stupidity. He asks me if I've been drinking. I respond, "Yes sir, I had a few before the game but I'm fine to drive now. I'm just taking my little brother and his friends home."

He looks at the passenger seat and sees Andy Frat sprawled out in youthful defiance, still wearing his White J. A. Banks button down, orange and blue frat edition striped tie, green KD pin, Khakis and Clark's Wallabies. He then glances in the back to see Jeff and my little bro, looking scared shitless and quite young.

He takes my ID and goes to his car, trying to decide just how full of shit I am. (hint: it's at least this much)

He reapproaches. "Son, why don't you come back 'round here and holler at me?"
Seriously, ver betum...I'm gonna be taken to jail by a complete redneck fucktard.

-"yes sir"

We get back behind the Land Rover and that's where I put on a show like I have never done before...seriously, I am not a strong man, physically or emotionally...I cried during the opening credits of Titanic and here I was facing a felony DUI charge and I was cool as a cucumber....NOT!

I was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. I remained in good spirits though. I figured, hell if I was going to jail anyway, might as well not look like a super douche on the police car video right?

I go through a series of field sobriety tests...and I MAKE THEM MY BITCH! Now maybe it was that the situation scared me sober, maybe it was the Wii Yoga I've been doing for the past 6 months, maybe, just maybe it was the Tiger T-shirt I got from the same company that makes these wolf shirts, but I nailed those tests. I could have walked a tightrope if he'd asked me to. I counted to twenty better than I ever did in elementary school. I stood on one leg like I'd been raised by flamingos...in a word, I PASSED!

Count it folks, SIXTEEN straight hours of drinking and I fucked a field sobriety test in the ass! Fuck that! I bent it over and did it without grease! The cop was pretty sure he was gonna get to slap some bracelets on me but no sir. He begrudgingly let me go with a speeding ticket. I drove us back to Jeff's house and proceeded to drink myself into oblivion...hey, I'd earned it.

Sunday Morning 9 am: Finally, bed time. What a long strange trip it's been.

My Waiting Game

Fast forward to senior year...I've finally moved out of the fraternity house and into a duplex with two of my pledge brothers, Don Marco and Dr. Studyman. These guys were on totally opposite ends of the pledge class (general business vs. pre med; 4am drinking vs. 4am cramming; pussy slayer vs. pussy tamer; etc...), but they were both good friends of mine. Don Marco and I were dating roommates and I was Dr. Studyman's go-to guy on the few weekends that he would get out and blow off steam. I thought it was perfect, living in the middle of two extremes...Sounds like the start of a sit-com right?

When we arrived on campus in early August (it was a ritual to get to school early and do fratlaps during sorority rush week), we were informed that our duplex would not be ready until late September. We had two options:

1) we could move into another fully furnished (finished) apartment in a different subdivision or
2) we could stay at the Heart of Auburn Motel in the extended stay units until ours was done.


We chose option 2...

Really though, how could we not. Free rent, free cable, free maid service, not to mention the reality company gave each of us $50 a week for food even though we had a full kitchen in the suite. But the real kicker for those of you not familiar with the area, was that it was stumbling distance from the bar and even closer than that to Taco Bell. It was like doing Panama City in Auburn.


All that freedom must have gone to our heads because within two weeks of moving into the hotel, Don Marco had severed ties with his half of our roommate duo...I was soon to follow. Every night was a nonstop party. Our hotel room became an even better pre-party locale than the fraternity house due in equal parts to the closer proximity to the bars and to the Bohemian sense of revelry that encapsulated the place. We had other similarly displaced collegians all around us so no one to complained about noise and everyone was spending their "food stipends" on booze. On several occasions there were instances of near death due to someone almost falling over the balcony railings or getting run down in the under-lit parking lot...in short, it really was like spring break in August. Even Dr. Studyman put down the books and got into the action.

One morning in the midst of a hungover haze, Don Marco looks over at me and says, "Colin, this is our senior year, we have to raise the bar." Sounds like the start of a National Lampoon's movie right? Well to be fair, Don Marco bore a surprising resemblance to Bluto...a fact we accentuated by framing a six foot poster of Jim Belushi chugging Jack Daniels in his 'College' sweat shirt and displaying it prominently in the front room.

"Raise the bar?" I inquired. "How do you propose we go about doing that?"

I expected half-hearted, hungover cliches. What I got was a full on corporate board room presentation. He cleared the coffee table and laid out charts and maps to aid his multi-point pitch about exactly how we would go about "raising the bar." He even insisted that I wake up Dr. S and that we all be in on this project together. It was very "Stand By Me." In his plan, every night we went out, we would play a new game. Each game was intended to get someone (if not all of us) laid. If someone got laid then they...you guessed it, "raised the bar." If the bar was not raised all week, something would have to be done...usually a fat chick. :) We came up with a whole host of games over that year which I won't go into in detail at the moment, but our favorite; our Thursday night, backs against the wall, go-to play was what we liked to call...the waiting game.

Everyone knows at the college keg party there are lots of different types of people...that sweet, sweet draft nectar tends to soften the beefs of many different herds and much like the Serengeti, they flock to the silver watering hole to get their liquid refreshment. The waiting game makes you the alligator. All party long while the jocks and the popped collar, super fratos strut around crowing and cawing for the attention of the "be there to be seen" girls, you just bide your time. Sip the beer, scan the periphery, have a couple of drunken debates with the politicos....all the time waiting. Soon the crowd will thin. The strutters will take their show to the bar to see and be seen, and the serious drunks will make themselves known. At this point look around again. Targets will emerge. There will probably be two types of girls left. The girlfriends (DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!) and the chronically low self esteem girls (the weak and wounded if you will). These girls have such a low opinion of themselves (rightly or wrongly, I've seen it both ways) that they think that the only way guys will be interested in them is if they are really wasted. So in a sense, they are predatory too...looking for that drunky drunk guy. Look for the Sad Sally in the corner and bring her a beer...or three. Offer her a ride home, then you are home free.

And thus are the general rules of the waiting game.

I told you all that to tell you this:

It was the end of our first week of raising the bar and I had yet to raise it at all...not even just a little bit.
Both of the others had some success earlier in the week and I was determined not be the weak link in our house. On a mission, I ventured out that night to a pledge keg and informed all interested parties that I was a sophomore. I waited, I sipped, I had random conversations, I waited some more...A second keg was bought....I repeated the process. Finally, around 3am, I had my mark. Unfortunately I was a little more drunk than I had intended to be. I stumbled over and offered a beer, it was accepted. We had a drunk convo and then I offered a ride home, it was accepted.

Meanwhile...back at the Heart of Auburn, my roommates were plotting against me...

The suite only had two rooms, each with two double beds. The rule was anyone bringing home a shacker got the alone room and the others would share...simple enough. Since I was anticipating bringing home a girl, they were in the other room, but these two Chatty Cathys couldn't sleep so they thought it would be a great idea to fuck with me when I got home.

Here's what happened:

Don Marco went to the front desk and informed them that one of our keys had been stolen and we didn't feel safe...they came and re-keyed the door.

1) About this time Random Keg Girl and I are headed to her house...by way of the Heart of Auburn. She starts to get a little freaked out when I slip up at tell her that I'm in fact a senior not a sophomore (gotta keep that story straight...idiot!).
2) She starts to get really freaked out when I pull into the Heart of Auburn Motel rather than some apartment complex like a normal college student.
3) I have just hastily and probably not very clearly explained to her our convoluted living situation, when I realize that my key doesn't work (strike three if your counting).

Perplexed, I just start beating on the door. No one answers. I call Don Marco...
-"Hello?" he answers with feigned sleepiness
-"Marco, I need you to unlock the door for me...my key's not working."
-"Did you raise the bar?"
-"Bout to if you get your dego wop ass out here and open this mother fucking door!"

My racial slurs and curse words don't even have time to register in Random Keg Girl's brain because in the next instant, Marco flings the door wide open. He is standing there ass naked with a tube sock over his Johnson. "Welcome to Casa De Bauchery!" he booms. Remember Bluto? Yeah...naked...He looks like he's wearing a sweater...covered in hair...like an unkempt Italian black bear.

At this point I wasn't going to even offer up an excuse. I was merely counting it as a loss and already working on a way to get Don Marco back, but to my total shock, she seemed unfazed...in fact, I think that might have been the moment that she was like, "Ok, these guys are just stupid frat boys...not psycho killers." We walked right past an equally stunned Don Marco and went into the empty bedroom...

And that dear friends, is how Colin raised the bar...the first time.

Fratlaps

What you need:

1 4x4 pick-up truck (preferably a z71 but an F-series will work in a pinch)
? cases of cheep beer depending on number of people and itchiness of your vaginas (natty, hi life, beast...none of that pussy pbr shit)
1 lawn chair (per person)
Fraternity letters affixed to the rear window of said pick-up truck

what you will do:
-Load up as many as can fit into the bed of the pick-up.
-Drive around the sorority dorms during rush week as the new freshmen (fresh meat!) walks around from dorm to dorm in their Sunday best.
-Blast bad generic country music.
-Yell horribly offensive things at said girls.
-Inform them of parties (in your pants and otherwise).
...
...
...
profit!

Annnnnnd There's the Grandma

"Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain . . ."
~Oliver Goldsmith

I love Auburn football.

I have been loving Auburn football for as long as I can remember. In fact, I have been to at least one game every year of my entire life (no shit my first Auburn/Alabama game was in 1982...in my mother's womb!). To me Auburn football games are a thing of absolute beauty. I have tried over the years to condense the singularity of spirit that I feel on a crisp October afternoon into words, but I've never really been able to accurately distill that emotional response. It's almost like a static electric charge, but not quite. It's almost like a good red wine buzz, but not quite. So many sensations almost describe it...but none ever really convey the totality of the scene or my love of it.

Because of my near obsession with Auburn Football, I joined the student recruiting organization (Tigerettes and Tiger Hosts) my junior year. Well...actually I joined because of my obsession and because OGF-0 had been a Tigerette the year before. I had already gone to more than a few of their functions to keep an eye on her so when it came time for that year's try-outs, I decided it would just be easier to join up.

wait, wait, wait...what?!

I guess I should back up here for a moment.

I'm really not that prototypical super jealous guy...never have been. I have never been the guy who gets all weird at bars when the GF is getting hit on. As far as I'm concerned, the more drinks some other sucker buys her, the less I have to. That being said, this particular organization was notorious for being a cesspool of sexual misbehavior. I'm not saying the university used sex as a recruitment tool...really I'm not. I mean that would be against the rules, and we all know that ALL major football programs follow ALL the rules ALL the time...just ask Lane Kiffen. All I'm saying is that there were lots of RUMORS about SUPPOSED cavorting with prospects (NEVER CONFIRMED BY ME). More disconcerting to me though were the rumors that on their off nights most of these kids fucked each other like rabbits (this I did confirm, but let's not get ahead of ourselves).

Back to the story.

So I joined up in the spring of '03. The very first thing I noticed about the Tigerettes and Tiger hosts was the girl to guy ratio. Out of the 125 members, there were only 15 dudes. At the first meeting, when I walked into that sea of vagine, I was absolutely awestruck. They spanned the complete spectrum of hot. Depending on your preferences there were at least 30 girls that would blow you away. It was like a fetish brothel...there were big asses or big tits or both...there were small asses or small tits or both...there was black, brown, red, yellow, green and white (hair, skin, curtains, drapes...you name it)...there was fake and all natural...there were mixes and matches of all of the above and all were complete with a moral compass that listed a little to the left.

In short, it was glorious!

I immediately forgot about keeping OGF-0 out of trouble and started working out schemes to get my self into some...trouble that is. ;)

Well OGF-0 and I broke up during that spring due to unrelated issues (i.e. bitch was crazy), and that left me free to peruse the local fare with immunity. But as with all things that appear too good to be true, there was a catch. Most of the girls were cleat chasers. I don't know why I didn't put that together earlier, but duh, there it is. About half of the officers and older girls were dating current players and about the same number of the newer members wanted to be in that same position (or multiple positions...ba zing!) by the next year.

So after realizing that compared to the gods of the gridiron, my frat shorts and croakies weren't going to get me anywhere, I settled in to a nice routine of showing up either late, drunk, hungover, or all three to all meetings and events and generally just being a bad tiger host. Luckily for me there was a whole subgroup of similarly disaffected kids within the membership which I fit into quite nicely.

I told you that story to tell you this story...I do that alot...try to keep up.

Among this merry band of miscreants is where I met Goldilocks. She was a deep fried country girl from a little two bit town outside of Auburn. Her southern drawl would help biscuits rise and her fit little gymnast body looked like it would make for a good time. So a few weeks or months (I forget the actual timeline) after OGF-0 and I parted ways, I called Goldilocks up and we went out for Margarita's at Laredo's. I should have seen the handwriting on the wall when we immediately ran into another Tigerette who seemed a little too interested in our being together, but tequila has a way of putting apprehensions to bed (among other things).

A few hours and a couple of large margaritas apiece later, we were ready to head home. I typically like to keep new encounters of this kind on my home turf, but she was adamant about not sleeping in a fraternity house. I finally relented and we went to her place. I was more than just a little intoxicated so I just thumbed the lines and turned wherever she said to go. 10 minutes later we pulled up to her apartment complex (duplexes really) safe and sound. I would rank that driving effort a solid silver medal performance...I think.

We stumbled into her house amid a sloppy make out session, and as soon as I walked through the door, I had an odd sensation of having been there before. I chalked that up to the similarities of college housing and followed her upstairs to a lace lined bedroom complete with stuffed animals and about a million throw pillows...all of which ended up on the floor eventually.

Now my original plan had been to peace out under the cover of darkness, but to my chagrin I didn't wake up until a nasty little ray of sunlight stabbed me in the eyes. Groggy and disoriented, I searched for all my belongings in what appeared to me to be a little girl's nursery. The frills and pepto bismol pink color didn't help with my disorientation...or my nausea. I was alone in the room and while I had a vague recollection of the previous night's misadventures, I definitely wouldn't have been able to swear to anything in court. My mind was put somewhat at ease as I looked around at the pictures in the room and found Goldilocks. However, any relief I got from realizing that I had not in fact invaded someone's house and slept in their kid's room was overwhelmed by the sight of the gargantuan men in the pictures with ol' girl...gradually I began to remember her talking about her 4 older, very protective brothers, two of whom had played football...FOR AUBURN. Next came the recollection of her telling me they were coming to visit. That day! For lunch!

I was sweating bullets now. What time was it? Noon? I heard banging around downstairs. I collected my Polo shirt and shoes and socks into a bundle and began to sneak down the stairs. I peered around the corner to find her furiously attacking her kitchen with 409. Relieved that we were alone, I stammered out something about calling her sometime and having to leave...I didn't even wait for a response. I bounded out of her door dressed in full on shacker garb like a gazelle running from a pride of angry lions.

Feeling the waves of relief wash over me with every bare foot I put between myself and her door, I jumped into my car. The noonday sun had rendered it into a steamy sweat box. I rolled down the windows and kicked on the AC as I surveyed my surroundings. I had been pretty wasted the night before so naturally it took a minute to process where I was...It was only then that the real anxiety hit.

Somewhere along the line the night before, I forgot that Goldilocks and OGF-0 lived across the street from one another. As I sat there, hungover, sweating Tequila by the quart, I kicked myself for being so dumb. I was never...EVER...going to hear the end of this. These girls hated each other already! I glanced in the rear view mirror with crossed fingers, hoping against all hope that she wasn't at home. What I saw boggled my mind.

Across the street there were five people standing in front of OGF-0's door. Four were looking at me and one had their head stuck inside. Soon the five turned to seven...I looked on stunned as I made out each of the figures, there was her dad, brother, aunt, niece, mother...oh wait here she comes herself. The last figure I can't quite make out but the effect was no different. I can see all their faces staring almost as stunned at me as I am at them. I crank the car and back up realizing that they have all just witnessed me doing the run of shame out of Goldilocks' house. As I drive by the gaggle of onlookers with my disheveled hair and white t-shirt, I can finally make out the last figure...

You guessed it...It was grandma.

Jesus.

Ironic Sunglasses Are the New Eyeliner...

Well that does it, I'm through with hipster kids.

I finally see why all those snarky webzines revile the indie rock "scene" as disingenuous. Here I was, deep in the Heart of Dixie, thinking that because I liked Death Cab for Cutie and the Decemberists that I would find people who populated their fanbase likable and interesting...In Bama, saying that you like indie music is almost like code for saying you are rebelling against the predominately redneck culture of SKYNARD!!! and Kenny Chessney!!! In Washington, however, hipster indie kids ARE the rednecks!

Well, not exactly. Rednecks can typically (and do from time to time) kick my ass. These Pacific Coast douches could barely kick my little sister's ass. What I mean to say is that the same way I wasn't "cool" in college because I didn't own a 4x4 Chevy with mud tires, I wouldn't be "cool" in Seattle because I refuse to squeeze my ass into size 4 girls jeans. So while enjoying some delicious encyclopedia rock is a badge of honor amongst my southern friends, out there it's like digging Nickleback...every silly jackass and their brother is into it just cause it's "hip."

I just returned from a badass weekend of bands and booze at the Sasquatch! (exclamation point added by them...that's how you know it's good) Music Festival. Think Bonaroo meets City Stages except there were bands I wanted to see and it was at the Gorge Amphitheater on the Columbia River which is truly spectacular. The views were breathtaking,

(not shopped)

and the beauty of the backdrop inspired more than one band to put on a monster show. That being said, there was also a hefty amounts of douchbaggery to contend with...hence the blog.

So a few years ago, a friend (we'll call him EmoDan) and I were talking about the state of pop-punk which we both took guilty pleasure in. He remarked to me that with the rise of bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco (don't random exclamation marks make everything cooler?), punk eyeliner was becoming the equivalent of grunge flannel which was equal and opposite to 80's hairspray which was only slightly less ghey than the leisure suit and so on. Well I have one more category to add to that over used genre specific band costume list: The Ironic Sunglasses.

Ironic Sunglasses are typically black oversized shades with neon frames that can be purchased at any low quality gas station across the country,


but they could be any form of eye wear that looks ridiculous...on purpose. I saw literally thousands of kids wearing these things this weekend.


Each time I saw a pair, God killed a kitten. Even some of the bands were sporting them...ahem...Bishop Allen...



More disconcerting than that though was how young these kids catch the bug...



That wasn't all though...apparently, any form of apparel can be turned into ironic hipster gear.



or more hot/creative/creepy:



or if you want to go WAY off the deep end...



Basically, I guess people just piss me off. I used to think if I went up to the Pac-Northwest and hung out in the same haunts as the likes of Nirvana and Death Cab, I would fit right in. Now I think if I lived up there I would probably be sporting a Budweiser t-shirt with cut off sleeves, screaming Freebird at the top of my lungs...just to be ironic.

or maybe not:



CRAP!

OGFS an Introduction

Moving forward a year.

This is a period of my life that I still don't quite have a handle on. Seriously...

I consider myself a pretty perceptive person. Combine that with my rampant narcissism and you can imagine the great bouts of introspection I undergo from time to time. I have stewed on these years for a while, trying desperately to discern the causal links that led me down my path. However, (barring significant psychological counseling) I may never know for sure. The best I have come up with so far is that I must have been ill. Not like physically ill. You know, the fun kind...mental illness. In hindsight, I would have to diagnose myself with what is commonly known as the Succubus Flu.

It's kind of difficult for me to talk about it. The mere mention of the word sends chills down my spine. I probably need to give it a new name...something less scary and possibly more scientifically descriptive. Maybe, "Oppressive Girlfriend Syndrome (OGFS)." Cool. The Centers for Disease Control would be so proud...I should look into spinning pandemics for a living.

OGFS is a common disease often caught by busy and unsuspecting boys or wealthy but otherwise undesirable old men. The main pathogen is carried by scheming and manipulative females hell bent on extracting all the lust for life from their victims. Like vampires, they seek out the feral essence of their prey and sustain themselves upon it.


So I have fallen prey to OGFS more than once in my life...In fact, I seem to be genetically predisposed to suffer from the condition. I have endured many different strains of the disease from the bitchy and controlling to the coddling and overbearing. Of all the cases though, one stands out above the rest. The first few years of my college experience was marred by the mother of all Oppressive Girlfriends...the UberOGF...the Fountainhead from which all others flow. We will refer to her henceforth as OGF-0.

As terrible as the rein OGF-0 was, I still managed to come away from her internment with some pretty hilarious stories...mostly at her expense. Actually, the more I ponder our relationship, the more I find our antics less like a cheeky give and take and more like a brutal, gladiatorial death match. In my defense, I did try to break up with her a few times instead of just cheating on her (Sometimes it even worked...for a while), but for years she found ways of weaseling back into my life. Even now, years later, she lurks...like herpes, dormant but not defeated.

Anyway, this disclosure will serve as a reference for future stories...

Let's Begin at the Very Beginning

OK. From the dawn of the 60's, college has been a place to expand one's mind and do things that just aren't socially acceptable in polite society...and promptly get that shit out of your system. The trouble is that in this day and age with our "arrested development" and all, I find that more often than not, college has turned into a mere training ground for postgraduate debauchery.

So even as this blog will develop into a real time exploration of the darker reaches of my soul, I feel that I should begin at the beginning--go back to ground zero and see where this train started to run off the rails. It's been a while, but I swear somewhere in the distant past, I was a good and sincere person. If not that, I was at least the stuffed shirt, SGA president, Salutatorian of my high school. My parents used to be proud.

Anyway...

I went to Auburn University. I joined a fraternity (which will remain nameless) because hey, my dad was in one and so was his dad. It made sense at the time. Now anyone who has attended large state schools (and anyone who has seen Animal House for that matter) probably already has preconceived notions of fraternity life for better or worse. I'm not saying that the movies are all true, but at Auburn I can vouch for them being pretty damn close.

Hazing was definitely the rule at the house I belonged to. Every morning at 6am we had "football" practice (I use the quotation marks because I never actually saw a football). Basically we had an hour and a half of calisthenics straight out of the Paris Island Playbook. Now this was a pain in my ass, especially considering the mid-week drinking regimen that consumed most every night. So you can imagine the sheer look of jubilation that occupied every one of our faces the morning our "pledge trainer" i.e. "drill sergeant" informed us that the pledge who brought the fattest shacker to football practice the next morning was exempt from exercise.

That's right boys and girls, call me Kermit the mother fuckin Frog cause I'm going hoggin!


You see that was the day of our first Pledge Swap. For the uninitiated, pledge swaps are an archaic dating concept where one group of fraternity pledges are thrust awkwardly into a group of sorority pledges equipped only with a ridiculous theme as an icebreaker. There is a little get to know you session then the party retires to somewhere less formal for the consumption of copious amounts of alcoholic beverages.

Well this particular swap was, "a training run," or "one to clean the pipes on before the good ones." I shit you not, these were actual phrases we heard from our older brethren. They had set us up with one of several bottom rung sororities, I guess so we could transition from talking about what football position we played to how we were all going to become doctors, lawyers, future noblemen, and magistrates.

Our theme: White Trash.


So clad in overalls and racing t-shirts, the 40 of us huddled to one end of the room as the sorostitutes trickled in. We had all day to mull over the pros and cons of taking a fatty home. The mockery vs. a much needed day off if you will. As for me there was no question...I am fucking lazy and therefore had been listening to Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls" on repeat all day to psyche myself up. I was going to attack this challenge with all the ferocity that I could muster. I had my mark in no time, I mean it wasn't like you could miss her...she was a huge bitch! We're talking 5'6" 180~190 (for a sorority clone, that is absolutely massive). JACKPOT! I immediately clocked my competition as well. It turned out that there were only about 6 of us that were unscrupulous enough to attempt the act of getting fatty not only to our bed, but also to the practice field in the morning.

Time for strateegery. I watched as a few went in and tried to talk to her, she seemed put off...I assume in retrospect that she had never been approached by sober boys before. She was having a hard time processing it. Here's where I took my gamble...I didn't speak to her at all. A few glances here and there, but otherwise, nothing. Soon enough it was time to take the party back to a duplex for the boozing. That's where I made my move. Long story short, it took a few gallons of hunch punch and hours of my rapier wit to wear her down, but eventually I ended up with Miss Piggy back at my place...it was 3am.

Now what went on between 3 and 6am are between me, her and her glorious FUPA. There will be plenty of time for you to judge me as time goes by. No need to waste it all on the first post. Suffice it to say that while my little blubber bucket slept soundly I paced the floor wondering how exactly I had arrived at this specific point in my life. Sometimes I still wonder...

Anyway, the clock eventually hit 6 and I woke her up, gave her a shack shirt (all she had been wearing the night before was a white trash bag...keeping it classy), and ushered her to my car. She was groggy from lack of sleep and probably still a little drunk, but she immediately knew something was up when she realized I was going the opposite direction of her apartment.

her: Where are you taking me?
me: Home...just uh, gotta make a quick stop first...yeah
her: where?
me: ... .... ... ...

As I pull into the parking lot, she sees the cars and crowd of my pledge brothers and proceeds to bawl. I mean huge alligator tears. I almost felt bad, but I was way too proud of my catch. Like a fisherman towing a 1200 pound marlin to the shore, I was sure this one was going to win...hell maybe even break a record. While I was imagining my name being etched into the hoggin hall of fame, we pulled closer and closer to the crowd. As we approached, my elation gave way to despair...in fact I felt like crying just as hard as she was...

Standing in the middle of the crowd, happier than a pig in shit, was our fat pledge (every class has one). We'll call him "Chuck." Chuck's aversion to running was apparently much much much stronger than mine. So much so that he went out and got himself a ringer. This girl was definitely not at the party. I doubt she even went to Auburn, I can't imagine the university being able to shoulder her burden on the meal plan. I guess he found her at an overeaters anonymous meeting or something. She made mine look like a Calvin Klein model. Seriously, she was a whopping deuce or deuce and a half..and completely unabashed. Chucky was wearing her underwear on his head running around the parking lot!


The shear physics of the act was mind boggling. I pondered that conundrum as I came to terms with the fact that I had lost and would be running that morning. Then almost as an afterthough I looked over at this girl in my front seat, curled into a ball, mortified, bawling her eyes out, I could only say one thing:

Oops...