Dateline: Every Saturday morning in the Delt house. Somewhere between 8am and 9am I would awaken. I use awaken because I am not sure the term "woke up" would apply when what I had just done could technically be called a short-term, controlled comma. I would shuffle down the hall to the bathroom. The smell of cheap stale beer filled my nose along with "other" smells that I did not know or want to know the orgin of. During this brief walk I found myself asking such questions as "how did THAT get there?", "who is that on the floor?" and "wow, who is going to clean this up?" Once in the bathroom I find that all the toilets AND the urinal are clogged with puke. Why, or better yet who pukes in a urinal?!?! My peeing choices have been narrowed down to 1. the bathroom sink, 2. the shower drain or 3. the garbage can. The fact is I could have just went on the floor and nobody would have known the difference.
Then I head on down to the kitchen to get some breakfast. Time for cereal. My cereal bowl was giant clear plastic bowl that the cook used to mix up salads in. I filled it to the top with Capn Crunch and proceeded to eat it way too fast and shred the roof of my mouth. I am pretty sure 1 bowl was the equivalant of 1.5 full boxes of Capn Crunch. I was one of the few that would get up at this hour. This meant I got to read the Sports section from the Spokesman Review Journal before it got torn to pieces and enjoy a fresh copy of the Daily Evergreen campus paper. This also meant I had front row seats circus that was about to get up head into the kitchen.
Usually, the last people to get up would show up downstairs with a wide variety of colorful "art" all over their face and body. Unwritten Delt law number one: if you do not make it to your bed you are fair game to be messed with. Most of the time this meant a LOT of of permanent ink on your face, arms or whatever area could be exposed for inking. Sometimes it was ink AND something else.
I was one of the lucky and very few to go my entire college career without getting inked up. I saw the layers of skin being shredded off to remove the ink and I wanted nothing to do with that. I went to great lengths to ensure I did not fall victim to it. Others learned the hard way by repeatedly not making it to their bed and paying the price.
When someone got lit up it was not a simple pair of glasses and a mustache drawn on people. The "inkers" made sure to get the insides of the ears, scalp, inside the nose, eyelids and the entire face. The volume of scrubbing it took to even fade the ink was incredible.
Karma was always in full effect in the Delt house. For this very reason I did not ink people up. However, I did stand by as an observer from time to time. I knew if I was always inking people up with pens that if and when my time came I would be in serious trouble. One rule if you're an observer is not to snitch. We all know snitches end up in ditches!
At times the pens were not enough. One shaved eyebrow, a hamburger bun stuck to the forehead with silicone or someone getting their underwear filled with cereal are a few examples. One night I heard snickering in the basement. I went down to investigate. Snickering is a sure sign there is more than Sharpie pens are in action and I was correct. I look into the room and see a guy passed out in a chair with no legs and leaning against a closet. He already received some Sharpie action and now had a pretty good pile of shaving cream sitting on top of his head.
The snickering continued. Finally I asked "what is going on here?". Someone says "we are doing a Mt. St. Helens reenactment on his head". Followed by a lot of snickering. The "mastermind" of this was a guy named Chris (forgot his last name) who was booted out of the fraternity for being a lunatic. Chris walks into the room with a firecracker. He walks up and places it in the middle of the pile of shaving cream. I asked Chris "couldn't that burn his head?" to which he responded "maybe" and proceeds to light the fuse. BANG. The shaving cream is completely gone and the guy didn't even flinch. There we had it. The 3am geniuses in action. No burns or other visible damage so the show was over and everyone heads off to bed.
I guess this was a case of "fair game" in accordance with the unwritten rule of making it to your bed. I guess there wasn't that much difference in this little game than the game most 3 year olds that play called "will my head fit here?" Chalk it up to life in the Delt house.
That's all for this time.
Nano Nano
-Brent
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