The Upper Decker’s Place In The Art Of War

A Broad a semester8 years ago

Your enemy wakes up on a seemingly normal Sunday morning. They stumble out of bed, crashing into the walls as they make their way to the bathroom. Everything seems normal until he starts noticing the smell. “It kind of smells like shit in this bathroom…”, they think to themselves, but there’s no shit to be seen so they just chalk it up to the pipes. Once they flush, their world comes crashing down around them. Their eyes will shine red with fear for just a moment before they call in everyone else to come see what happened. The war is on, and the first battle is lost.

For anyone that isn’t familiar, an upper decker is taking a dump in the top tank of a toilet. It’s vile, it’s clearly intentional, and it forces someone else to clean up your shit. I don’t see it as a light-hearted prank, because, you know, someone else has to clean up your shit. So, if you decide to pull an upper decker, know what you’re getting yourself in to. It’s an act of war, and that’s why it’s glorious. You might be thinking “the upper decker never went away, so what’s the issue here?” Well, congratulations. You live in a fantastic part of the country that still embraces vengeance and glory, but this is not the case everywhere.

A properly timed and executed upper decker should be the first measurable strike from your side in any escalating conflict. You shoot your fireworks toward their house, they throw their trash in your lawn, you both get a one year intramural ban stemming from a basketball game, they steal your composites, and you decide enough is enough. You sneak into their house and deuce in that top tank. This is how you put someone on notice. This is the real start of a war. Because once you force someone to deal with your soupy poopy, they can’t look at you the same way.

The upper decker is not the craziest or most powerful strike available. They’ll get over it, but this is our generation’s horse head in the bed. They haven’t responded to your threats so far, and it demanded escalated action. Your enemy will feel violated because they will know you had to sneak into their house to do it, sneak out, and probably not wipe your ass because yeah what did you do with that toilet paper? It’s at this point that they will have to start sneaking into your house to steal every pair of shoes, or cutting everyone’s pants into shorts — genuine destruction of property type stuff. Never forget the golden rule: He who receives an upper decker cannot reply with an upper decker of equal strength and efficacy. The bad guys can try to get you back, but on an emotional level it’s just not the same. Or maybe they back off, they can’t handle the heat, and if that’s the case then they didn’t deserve to be your rivals in the first place.

This is definitely not how you finish a war. The war is over when you drive their president’s car into a lake on campus, or when their racist Groupme messages mysteriously leak to the world. Seriously, play the upper decker card early. It jumps you to the sweet spot of level two and makes your opponent think about how much they are willing to invest in your potentially one sided feud. Keep in mind that you cannot use this tactic too frequently. Otherwise you’re just the dudes who dump in other people’s houses all the time…potentially weird rep to have. But if you keep hearing about some dudes circling jerking on your stolen composites or using weed killer to draw dicks in your lawn, it’s time to shit hard and shit fast.

In the immortal words of Leon Black, “You get in that ass, Larry.” Don’t confess to your actions. They’ll suspect that it was you who cursed them but play this one like a wise guy and just keep your mouth shut. And take solace in the fact that generations of pledges to come will be hazed with rising brutality that can be traced back to an 18-year-old Tim being forced to grab human shit out of a toilet just a week before the semester (and his pledgeship) ended. No shot he doesn’t pass those scars on..

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