The 4 Day Bender That Was My Fraternity’s Graduate Reunion Weekend

Dan Regester10 years ago

Sometimes you got to go back to actually move forward. I don’t mean going back to reminisce on the glory days or chase ex-girlfriends; I mean going back to see the house you came from. Where you’ve been, how you got where you are — to see where you’re going. I know there are those that say you can’t go back. Yes you can. Just got to look for the right reasons. And there’s no better reason than Frank Norris Pig Dinner Weekend.

For those of you that aren’t Fijis, Pig Dinner is an annual event where postgrad brothers come far and wide for a reunion banquet. My chapter adds a golf tournament to the mix in the morning; most get in earlier in the week and make it an extended weekend booze extravaganza. Combine the excitement you felt as a little kid on Christmas Eve with the thrill of the night you lost your virginity and multiply it with the feeling of your team winning the World Series and that’s Piggy weekend in a nutshell.

I snuck out of work early last Wednesday to catch my flight out of Austin. Fully anticipating both a chastising and sexually inappropriate email from Dorn, I turned off my phone, kicked back in my plane seat, and grabbed a drink the first moment the stewardess would serve me. From that point forward, there was a beer or whiskey diet (got to watch those calories, man) glued to my hand for the next four days.

My buddy Kyle picked me up from the airport. We swung by the fraternity house to snag some brothers, and we were off to the local watering hole referred to as Knight Library. I’ve been to many a college town, but I’ve yet to find better bar deals than the UCF area: $7 at the door a head, but free liquor pitchers until 12. We showed up at 8:57 on the dot. Easing into the weekend was no longer an option.

Four pitchers in, and I wander off and let loose on the dance floor. I proceed to gyrate on some 18-year-old booty for an hour, realize everyone I came with had left, feel shamed that I was suddenly the oldest dude at the bar (I turn 24 in May), and stumbled my way out. The details are still unclear to me, but I somehow woke up the next morning in downtown Orlando (a twenty minute drive from UCF) at Kyle’s on an air mattress covered in the remains of what was a Wendy’s 50 count spicy nugs platter, and the accompanying honey mustard packets. Diet sodas are really paying off.

Thursday, I caught up with some brothers at the house, day drank, and went to an intramural kickball game where we put it in Sigma Pi’s poop chute — continuing our storied tradition of dominating irrelevant sports. The night was more or less the same as the previous, but this time I woke up on my friend Nick’s couch cuddling his mini pitbull Bailey, who, only the day before, wanted to rip my hand clean off when I went to pet her.

My friend Scotty picked me up Friday morning, and we drank the rest of the day at his apartment watching East Bound and Down and waiting for the influx of brothers coming to town that night.

Around 5 o’clock, I showered, tried to make myself as presentable as possible (a fruitless battle), and found my buddy Billy sitting on the broken couch. He handed me a box, which I calmly opened because it’s no longer 2010, and the fear of piss-warm Smirnoff Ice no longer hunts my mental real estate. Total lapse of judgement on my end.

We roll about fifty deep into this German joint around seven. The food and beer were great, but the real highlight at the restaurant was served by yours truly. I took a lemon from one of the girl’s drinks, called my shot from across the room, launched the citrus over three tables, and cleanly sank the attempt into my buddy Russell’s fully filled beer, causing an overflow and massive spillage onto his green shorts. Being the trooper that he is, he pushed through the rest of the night with the appearance that he pissed himself, and still managed taking a girl home.

As for your boy, I finally got on the scoreboard as well. Everything was coming up Regester. I won’t go into details because I’m gentlemanly like that, and because I don’t want to embarrass the girl and make her have ‘Nam flashbacks of going home with such a fat, obnoxious, degenerate slob like myself.

I woke up at her place Saturday morning and quickly realized I had a tee time in about twenty five minutes. Luckily, one of my brothers happened to be with her roommate, and I was able to snag a ride back to Scotty’s with him. I quickly changed, headed to the links, and was handed a club and a ball on the tee box because I left my clubs in Austin. This resulted in the following shot off the first tee.

It’s worth mentioning that I routinely shoot in the mid 80s, but the remainder of the round was mostly as miserable as this shot. So we focused more on drinking and shamelessly throwing game down at the cart girl. Eventually, things went completely off the rails, groups starting hitting into one another, and we almost came to blows with the course ranger. Needless to say, we won’t be welcomed back anytime soon.

After a quick nap, I threw this on for dinner:

We headed to the Orlando Science Center, and Piggy quickly became the roast of Dan Regester. Our quick witted MC, Tyler, came out firing with nonstop STD and internet famous jokes and the suit only added fuel to the fire. At one point, the entire chapter stood up and sang the National Anthem in my direction. It was fucking majestic. I ran with it and started to make flag like movements, but most likely just looked like a jackass dancing like one of those wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube men at a car dealership. To my surprise, it played.

Everyone made their way to Wall Street afterwards, and we took over this bar, Sideshow. With each passing drink, my irrational body confidence became more and more evident and my shirt slowly popped off one button at a time.

When you have chest hair game as strong as I do, you just have to share it with the world. I’d honestly be doing a disservice to humanity if I didn’t. Clearly the ladies were fans. I almost drowned in the sea of poon that surrounded me, and that’s not hyperbole, I was gasping for air. Well mainly because I was gassed after smoking this want to be gangsta in a dance battle. He was so embarrassed he straight up left the establishment. Kid, when you come at the king, you best not miss.

The rest of the night was chock-full of empty promises of brothers visiting me in Austin, liberally flowing booze, and bumping and grinding on some strange until we shut the bar down.

That’s when it hit. The party was over. Back to our every day lives we would go. It’s truly bittersweet: getting a taste of the college days again and then being thrown back into the real world. I contemplated staying, knowing full well it wouldn’t stay this way. It couldn’t. We’re fucking adults now. My buddies are getting married, buying houses, and thankfully not popping out kids just yet, but things are changing and it scares the shit out of me. But to bring this full circle, appreciating your roots can propel you forward in the future. Hell, I turned it into a career.

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. Until next year, gentlemen..