“Boom, boom, shake that thang! Boom, boom!” It’s not uncommon to have the base vibrations of some party song or other coming through the air vents into my room. Tuesday night ‘jam sessions’ (ahem) are so frequent that the noise actually lulls me to sleep. And by lull me to sleep, I mean with cotton stuffed in my ears and a pillow smashed over my head—but hey, details, details. It doesn’t really matter.
Free music at heightened volumes during the middle of the week is just one of the many benefits of living in a wild frat’s housing. Another benefit of living with the bros? They keep the refrigerator stocked with delicious nourishment beyond your wildest dreams. Get this—just this week as I was looking for butter to make cookies, I found half a case of beer, an empty pizza box (complete with cheesy bits smashed into the cardboard!) and a frozen, half-slurped-half-spilled Dunkin’ Donuts ice coffee in the freezer.
Now, I realize not all of you can be as lucky as I to be in such close proximity with all of this awesomeness, but I’ve decided to write you a guide in case the housing gods decide to favor your room selection for next semester (Freshies, I’m especially talking to you.) In that case, you’re going to want to know which shenanigans are normal/expected and which are just too plain destructive/dangerous/etc. So here’s the latest inside look, dear collegiettes. You’re welcome.
What’s normal to expect from destructive bros:
-The natural perfume that coats the hallways after a pregame or big Friday night. Some people find that sweat rancor and dank urine-and-beer mix disgusting, but honestly they’re just giving our Bath and Body Works home fragrances a break. Who wouldn’t want to trade ‘clean linen’ for ‘screwdriver special’?
-Their unique sense of interior design. Why, just this past weekend, the bros decided to take it upon themselves to do some reinvisioning by smashing a window and removing a piece of furniture from the common room. Aside from the shards of glass remaining in the hallway, I have to say the cracked window and duct-tape patch job really add to my view of the outside world. It’s psychedelic. And, I’m sure nobody’s missing that table from the common room, anyway.
-Their strong awareness of the environment. The other week the bros lit a fire in the elevator and incapacitated the dorm’s ability to use it. Now everybody has to take the stairs, the fire extinguisher feels happy that it was finally useful, and somewhere, some energy company is angry because our bros are GREEN and not in favor of using elevator energy.
-Hogging the laundry room. I’m not kidding. I know on the surface it may seem like bros don’t know how to do laundry, but the washers and dryers are always full with their clothes. In fact, sometimes when I return to the laundry room a few hours later, there are still clothes in the washers and dryers. And what’s more, the bros must all have the same taste in clothes, because usually the clothes in the machines are the exact same as the ones I saw a few hours earlier! Who knew they love their housekeeping? I guess they must need to look fly all the time for the ladies.
What’s NOT normal to expect from destructive bros:
-Anytime the bros head into the girl’s bathroom. Hey, I like drunken shenanigans as much as the next girl, but girl’s bathrooms are off limits. Call them ‘home base,’ or, ‘safe house,’ or what you will, but they are out of bounds for any bro to enter. We’ll tape male-sensitive barbed wire on the doorknobs if we have to. And the beer bros leave in our bathrooms just in case we get thirsty at 3AM? It’s thoughtful but unnecessary. We prefer water or milk to quench morning thirst, in case you were wondering.
-Come to think of it, if a girl’s room is locked, that’s off limits too. Sometimes the bros may mistake a locked door as a coy, coquettish move in a game of sexy hide ‘n’ seek, but truth be told, when bro(s) begin to jam things into the lock and pound on the door, game’s over and it’s time for them to take a hike. We don’t want to pay for that damaged lock or your medical bill if you actually do manage to enter into our rooms without permission and we’re waiting with a bat/can of pepper spray/fists of death on the other side.
-If the bros can’t take no for an answer. Not everyone finds blatant disregard for boundaries charming. So if you find your “no’s” are being ignored, feel free to use whatever self-defense you have in your arsenal to make them see (or should I say feel?) your objections.
Dear collegiettes, though I have given you a small list to navigate the wilder frat housing, you can never hope to fully understand the vast complexities and minutiae of this complex ecosystem. One can only hope that with a little practice, you too will one day learn the ways of the wild bros and not be overtaken in the dog-eat-dog world of frat housing. I believe in you, young padawans.
Photocredit:
Girlàhttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1kW9Zn29tnc/Tql-NSaVWhI/AAAAAAAAARo/QCwLqltqrm0/s1600/scared.jpg
Broken windowàMy own photo!