DOs and DON’Ts with The Dapper Dipper: Pledging

jakewgoldman13 years ago

So it has only been a few weeks into the semester, and I’m already starting to remember all of the things that got under my skin last spring. Thank God for football in the fall, otherwise I’d probably go ape-shit on some of the freshmen around my campus. I don’t know if it’s just me, but do these little assholes seem younger and cockier? How do they get so much smaller, yet so much more big-headed year after year? It blows my fucking mind, but I digress. Without further ado, here are the DO’s and DON’Ts for the newest onslaught of pledges nation-wide.

DON’T: Whine

There is nothing that makes me hate, and I really mean HATE, a particular pledge more than the sound of a complaint. “Do I really have to get ice?” Do you really want to be running laps for the rest of the day? No? Then bring me my fucking ice. I don’t know what your problem is whiny pledge, but I assure you I will turn that annoying whine into a high-pitched squeal faster than you can say the Greek alphabet while holding an upside-down match if I have to hear it one more time.

DO: Respect the process

Work sucks; it’s a fact of life. Do you think I was thrilled about running around with buckets of ice on gamedays having to shotgun beers on every trip to and from where I was going? Well, I did enjoy the shotgunning, but I really hated the running. However, that being said I want you to realize the fact that I had to do the same thing you are doing less than four years ago. Pledging is the process of earning your keep in an institution; the point isn’t to ridicule you, but to help you understand the importance of hard work. I promise you’ll respect the shit out of it when someone is bringing you a cold one next year.

DON’T: Say you are in a fraternity

Hey, pledge, guess what? YOU ARE NOT IN MY FUCKING FRATERNITY. At any moment you could be balled, we can’t do that to brothers, so what makes you think you are “in” my house? Saying you’re in a house when you are pledging it serves as a shit-list multiplier. Not only are you pulling all the bad pledge moves as usual, but now you are also making the entire house look bad in the process because someone might think you are a brother. If you want to spare yourself from some good old fashioned fire and brimstone, I suggest you stop dropping our house’s name.

DO: Say you are pledging a fraternity

It really is that simple. We want you guys to be proud of pledging our houses. Hold your heads up when you walk around campus with that pledge pin. Hold the door for girls when you’re wearing that scrubby-ass uniform. Make a name for yourself and for the house you want to be a brother in, but for the love of GOD remember you aren’t a brother yet, now have a seat on the wall.

DON’T: Think the brotherhood favors you the most

“Yeah they really like me here, I’m practically initiated.”
Ha. Haha. HAHAHAHAHA. If you have even thought for a second that a house wished they could initiate you before your entire pledge class, you have a rude awakening ahead. Instead of trying to buddy up with all of us, you should probably get back to work because your pledge brothers are already starting to hate your slack…and guts.

DO: Get to know your pledge brothers

The brothers of a house are the first people you meet, that’s a given. Sure, you made friends with them over the summer and really got to know some, but at the end of the day you are still a pledge. Even though your whole house will be attending your open-bar wedding (it will only be half your house if it isn’t open bar), your pledge brothers are the ones you will be choosing for groomsmen. Stop acting like you are better than the kids around you, they all got bids, and they’ll earn a lot more respect than you ever will if you keep the cocky shit up.
Well, there you have it, another list of things that piss me off. All of the freshmen really just need to learn how to buck-up, quiet down, and keep their noses to the grindstone so that they can earn some real respect. We aren’t your parents; you have to earn good blessings in the greek community. Hopefully you’ve learned something from this, but who am I kidding, you’re a pledge.