“Welcome to the Jungle” starts playing. The heavy beat followed by the transfixing percussion pierces your ears. The angry voices accompanied by even angrier lyrics only match the frustration you now feel. Your blood begins to boil, your fists tighten and you simply can’t not begin to scream because once again someone has stolen your “fracket”*.
We can all probably think of the fracket that is hanging in the back of our closet, or probably behind our door so the odor of warm Keystones and sweat doesn’t perforate your other “real” clothes that are half-decent. Sure, this fracket isn’t the best looking thing you have ever been the owner of, but it has been through a lot. It has kept you warm on the walk home at 2 a.m from the Jug when the sound of Sinatra clued you in that it was time to go. And there was that time when it offered you solace when you realized you might have misinterpreted the theme a bit wrong, and that stringy tank top wasn’t the best call on your part. So when you lose this fracket, or better yet, when someone effectively steals it claiming they “didn’t realize” it wasn’t their own, your heart aches a bit as you are forced to walk home in the freezing cold and your soul yearns for the fracket of your past.
As you walk down the street now without your trusted fracket you start to wonder how many frackets are actually still with their original owner. I mean really once the drinks are consumed and you have to make that life or death decision whether you need Slices again tonight, it’s only instinct to pick up the first fracket that’s in your sight, especially if yours has been stolen from the hiding spot you thought was going to be clutch. If we think hard enough about it, the life cycle of the fracket is actually quite short. We have somehow obtained this great companion that is destined to keep us warm even on the coldest of Colgate nights. (If we stole it from someone else, it should probably go in the wash just to make sure the old beer smell it will accumulate is surely only from your own night out.) Once we arrive at the destination in the fracket there is one rule: find the best hiding spot for the fracket. Forget socializing and dancing on elevated surfaces, if you don’t successfully hide your fracket in the old, unplugged, unused fridge behind the unlocked door on the mysterious third floor of the party then you are doing something wrong.
So now you have hidden your fracket and the night can unfold as it may. Many songs and events, we shall call them, pass by and it is time to leave. You head up to the same mysterious third floor as before to open that old, unplugged, unused fridge to get your fracket out, but it’s gone. There are only so many conclusions you can draw from this situation, but there is one thing you are sure of—you are livid. This fracket has been there for you through it all and now it is on someone else’s back. Where is this monster? Why would they do such a cruel thing? And most importantly, who’s fracket are you now going to take?
This fracket cycle is vicious, we know. But at the end of the day it’s still a dog eat dog world and there’s no way anyone is going to voluntarily walk home in below freezing temperatures without sporting a brand new fracket on their backs.
*A jacket you have decidedly and strategically chosen to be worn solely out to frat parties because 1) it’s actually really ugly and hasn’t fit you right for two years now and 2) this horrible fate is inevitable and it will probably end up in someone else’s hand by the end of the night.