Things We All Forget About Fall

jakewgoldman11 years ago

According to my Facebook newsfeed, it is once again that time of year when everyone is letting you know what time of year it is again: fall, or summer, or spring FACEBOOK ISN’T A FUCKING A CALENDAR I KNOW WHAT SEASON IT IS! Whether it’s a countdown to football season or the end of sorority recruitment, everyone is jazzed up about the fact that fall is here, and not without reason. Getting completely destroyed on a Friday afternoon and watching sorority babies wipe out sprinting to their new houses, cracking the first case with your pledge brother after successfully moving down the hall for your second year in the house, and (one of my personal favorites) the first happy hour when everyone is finally back in town, are all fond memories for me, and things I look forward to at the beginning of the school year. However, much like how a few shots of Jäger will allow you to “not notice” the imperfections of whoever the hell decided to go home with your drunk ass after that first happy hour, so too will these great memories make you conveniently forget about some of the more taxing aspects of our favorite semester.

Sorority Recruitment

Like I said, girls start counting down to the end of this as soon as it starts. So should you. You know what happens during recruitment right? Girls stay in because prefs or some other estrogen-heavy event is the next day, and PanHel is going to make sure that it all starts at six in the morning so that the hungover can struggle. Seriously, there HAS to be some closet freaks in PanHellenic executive boards because they come up with some really sadistic shit for recruitment week. PNMs will also make damn sure not to be caught dead making a bad impression if it just so happens that some brave sorority girl decides to rebel and skirt her much-needed sobriety for the next day. This all means there will be a significantly smaller number of people without penises at the bar, and that’s a sad story. A really sad story called sorority recruitment. Shit, the only great thing about sorority recruitment is that there will eventually be a new bunch of girls who simply can’t remember enough names/faces to piece together the story of how you railed out three of her future sisters in one night. Good job by the way, that was awesome.

Babies

This brings us to babies, and I know that may seem a little counter-intuitive at first, but I feel like you still may be seeing the world through gameday-tinted glasses. There is nothing actually terrible with the newest pledge class of any sorority. In fact, if you ask any of your friends in a sorority, their newest pledge class is actually the hottest they’ve ever seen, ever. But that’s for you to determine come announcements time. Anyway, these girls are young, impressionable, and for those two reasons, will be kept far away from you: the guy who wants to bang her. I am surprised that I haven’t seen sophomore pledge classes go the route of shitty parents and just leash up their new girls because for the first two months they’re basically treated like toddlers skeeted out on ice cream and jonesing for a hot dog. The drunken conversations between the girls are even better, especially when it’s a girl telling a freshman how to be classy when you’ve see her do body shots off of your token fat guy. Then she’ll tell her about the time you railed out three of her future sisters in one night. Fuck.

Fraternity Rush (Specifically the shitty kids)

I don’t know about you, but regardless of how “dry” rush may be on your campus, there is nothing wrong with taking care of yourself in order to endure four hours of repetitive conversations about dorm rooms, majors, and how great a kid who just moved out of his parents’ house was in high school. I have found that in a sea of 100-plus fraternity men, it is really hard to pick out where the whiff of whiskey is coming from, so you’re probably in the clear as long as you can hold your liquor. But for some reason unbeknownst even to me, there will always be that one fucking kid that is so miserable during rush it makes your buzz seem like an all too distant memory — like the time you railed out those three girls in the same sorority in one night. I call these kids Marvins, because to help younger guys rush, I would pretend to be a loser named Marvin and help navigate how to pass him off to whomever would be in charge of axing people from the house. The conversation with Marvins is always an uphill struggle in which you try to divert the topic away from whatever hopelessly embarrassing shit the kid may be talking about and back to something relatively normal. Meanwhile, the only thought running through your head is “fuck post-discussion, if I have to talk to this kid for another five minutes I’ll take the judicial board and escort him out myself.” Seriously, just do it. Write the check. Whenever in doubt, write it. Some kids are really just that terrible, I mean, call me an elitist, but it’s true, I’m a total elitist. You’ll also be doing everyone else a favor.

Moving into the House

If you are a younger brother moving in for the first time, let me be one of the many to reiterate that there is nothing quite like living in a fraternity house. You’re with a ton of likeminded people, there is always a party, and you have to walk fifteen feet to get to your bed. That being said, moving in is something that any returning junior or former house resident will tell you is a complete nightmare. Why? Because you are around a ton of likeminded people bent on putting things off for a party, there is ALWAYS a party to distract you from painting or setting up, and your bed is fifteen feet away from everyone else. This is the moment in your life where your time management is put to the test. This is also the moment where I realized I cared a lot more about partying than whatever the hell color my room was painted. Your sleep schedule will be fucked because there is always something going on outside your room, and there will always be three rooms worth of furniture in the hallway for the first week and a half. If you think it’s hard to navigate your shit around all of it, just you wait. Remember that sorority you’re courting for homecoming? They have to move into houses too. Guess what my most-recently-initiated friend? Your ass will be there bright and early. God bless your soul if you have a truck because, well, you probably already know from pledging.

All of these things aside, fall is a wonderful time. There are football games, freshmen girls, and plenty of reasons to get excited. Just remember that everything comes with a price. Much like pledging, every moment you can’t wait for is countered by plenty that feel like an eternity in a basement, and you’re going to have to grit your teeth and bear it. Welcome to fall.