I don’t know if I can pick out one “craziest night” from my time here at Allegheny, but I can certainly pick out the most disgraceful, and I’m sure that’s what people want to hear about anyway.

I was a tiny little freshman who had just joined a certain organization on campus. That organization was, and still is, both tight–knit and incredibly alcoholic. This is a dangerous combination, because not only do they want to constantly make you do shots, they want you to love them for the privilege.

They invited me over to a party they were holding for officers within the organization. In my head, I imagined it as playing golf with my bosses: schmooze a little here, flirt a little there, upward mobility to follow. I was unaware of their love of massive drunkenness at the time, so when they told me that the event was BYOB, I believed them.

Because I wasn’t expecting any alcohol to be readily available, I pregamed. Locked away in the dank, dark corners of Schultz Hall, I imbibed a number of substances I imagined would make me a happy member of the party. Stumbling and smiling, I made my way to the house where I planned to suck up until I was openly declared heir apparent of my organization and lavished with praise.

I should have known when I heard the music. I should have known when I heard the screams. I should have known when seven sweaty bodies muscled me into a corner and told me to start playing “Boom.” I didn’t know what “Boom” was, and I still don’t know, but I do know it involves a lot of yelling and a lot of punching, neither of which I was wholly prepared for. Still, I stood in the corner, smiling and doing what I was told. They may have been violently drunk and abusive, but –– at least technically –– these people were the elite, and I wasn’t about to show any signs of displeasure if I could help it. As it turned out, though, I could only help it for so long. I felt the hot breath of the current heir apparent on my neck and I turned. Her eyes were wide and panicked and her hands were on my shoulders.

“Shots. Do shots. Shots shots shots.”

I remember thinking, “Where did she get that tequila?” But that’s the last thing I remember, aside from her mantra.

“Shots shots shots shots shots.”

I reconstructed the rest of my night from both Facebook and legend, if you can separate the two. I was fed shots shots shots all night, apparently for the fun of making an underage and impressionable person puke. I collapsed in a heap in a corner. At some point, someone covered me in Silly String. At another, I vomited all over myself, confided in everyone that my friends at home were trying to murder me and forgot what the alphabet was.

I woke up on a mattress in the hallway in another man’s shirt with a note next to my head saying “If you’re reading this, we’re glad you’re alive!”

I had only one memory from the whole night, and I grasped onto it dearly as I walked home, still drunk, to face my roommates.

“Well,” I told anyone that would listen. “This girl told me there was a snake–” I would crack up hysterically.

“A snake in this room, right, and she–” I would crack up again. I could not get through it.

“She, she took me to the room, and– HA! HA! HA!”

“Yes?” my audience would sigh at me, waiting for me to finish.

“You don’t understand!” I would insist, chuckling. “The snake was asleep!” And I would double over laughing. People still ask me if the snake is asleep when I am drinking.

Despite my giddiness, I was mortified at the whole situation, and understandably so. I had only gone over to try to impress these people, and they had covered me in Silly String and held my head over a toilet while I begged them to let me die.

I considered quitting the organization. I considered leaving Allegheny forever. In the end, though, I decided to bring “The Oregon Trail” to our Monday meeting and hope.

As it turns out, nothing smoothes things over like putting a virtual version of yourself in a wagon and dying of cholera.

So my advice to you is this: if you wake up in a pile of your own bodily fluids wearing someone else’s clothes, don’t get sober ’til dinnertime the next day and your snake is asleep, convince your superiors to hunt buffalo with you, even though you can only carry 100 pounds of meat back to your wagon.

It worked for me. After all, the freshmen I get drunk are going to have to call me president.

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