Adventures in College: PAAAAARRRRRRTAAAAYYYYYYY

***DISCLAIMER***

The following story features underage consumption of alcohol, evading police capture, sex, and toasted grilled cheese sandwiches, most of which were only observed and not experienced by me, as I am a goody-good who plays by the rules.  I don’t know how exactly to explain why this should put in a disclaimer, but I decided I wanted this post to be edgy.  But I’m about as edgy as a beach ball, so this seemed like a pretty good idea.

Now onto the story.

***

You may not know this about me, but I am a rabid party animal.

…once I’m forced out of my element.

But every so often, I like to force myself out of my element just to try something new.  These whims usually go pretty well.  They have gotten me into the theatre and playing bass guitar.  But sometimes, it has ended less than swimmingly.  For instance, I spent about $400 on a bass guitar because DAMMIT I APPARENTLY NEEDED ONE.

And on Halloween 2012, I was feeling another one of those storms brewing.  I spent a good chunk of my Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights before Halloween working with other theatre children at a haunted house (I got to die in the electric chair, good times!) and was ready to just go home and sleep.

Picture:

This was before six straight hours of screaming while tied to said chair, but that is a story for another day.

As I made my way back to my dorm, throat burning and barely able to talk, I bumped into a friend of mine, who was on his way to a Halloween party.  I had heard stories of these mystical Halloween college parties, full of girls in creative(ly slutty) costumes, as well as the genuine excitement, that only one thing came to mind.

If you’ve read either of my Prom blog posts, you may already know what kind of night I had.

Now, as this was a Halloween party, I had to find a costume.  As I’m not a girl, I wasn’t restricted to only lingerie and slight accessories to suggest something, but I did have my old Danny Phantom shirt from when I dressed up like Danny Phantom for Halloween (There’s a picture of it on this blog somewhere, but I’m too lazy to find it), so for a last minute costume, I figured I’d be in the clear.

Note to all future partygoers:  Obscure costumes are lost on the soon-to-be or current alcoholics in your age group.

But nevertheless, a group of six of us all piled into an SUV, with only one destination in mind:  Crazy College Party. 

We managed to find one pretty quickly.  One of the best parts of college is you can always find a party in the first half of the first semester simply by following crowds of lost freshmen desperate for alcohol.  We managed to do this, and soon we were at a house that seemed to be vibrating from what was sure to be awful music from the inside.  Immediately, I started regretting my decision to go out and face the world, but I swallowed my dignity with a hearty “YOLO” and followed a group of people inside.

Now, I don’t consider myself inherently claustrophobic, but parties like this make me change my mind a little bit.  See, the parties I was used to were a little:

and I wasn’t quite sure how to react to a little

So naturally, it didn’t go well.  It also didn’t help that I could barely breathe, let alone walk.  People were grinding with each other to some kind of music, but I couldn’t hear anything apart from the house vibrating.

One thing that I was surprised about was that there was a very small amount of alcohol at the party.  People were still totally trashed, but at least they had the decency to get drunk in the private of their own dorm rooms…?

Yes, I know, I’m stretching, just cut me some slack.

Within minutes, I found myself plastered to a table that was covered in a layer of (what I really hoped was) water.  As I felt it run down my jeans, I realized that I was in way over my head, and almost immediately, I began to formulate my plans for escape, but due to powerful vibrations, every thought that I conjured was one simple message:

Despite the screams, I managed to comprehend that my friend wanted me to go where he was going to.  So I followed him down to the basement and was granted sweet elbowroom. I sighed, relieved.  Then, the inevitable happened.

Shit.  But I couldn’t just leave my coat anywhere, so naturally, and against my better judgement, I decided to go back up and wade through the crowd and put my jacket away, even though every fiber of my being was saying to just go back to the dorms.  My friend followed me.

Finally, after about seven minutes of pushing through “sexy Minnie Mouse” (ew) clones, we located the actual host of the party, who then directed us to the one empty room in the house, where we could drop all of our stuff.

It was that moment when I learned that I was not a fan of chugging vodka.  Who knew?

And it just got more and more crowded.  If I remember correctly, I spent more time wading through the crowd of already-drunk slutty Minnie Mouses and that Moose guy to get to the bathroom than it took to actually wait in line to pee.

Finally, I couldn’t take it any more.  The air was a stale mix of cigarette smoke and cheap beer, and if I wasn’t going to get a whiff of fresh air soon, I would probably go on a murderous rampage, which still wouldn’t have gotten me to move faster than a snail’s crawl.  But it finally happened.  I reached the front door and was hit with a sudden gust of cold air.

.

Almost immediately, the loud music was replaced by a huge bustle of commotion as the police ushered everyone out of the house.  People rushed out, dizzy from alcohol mixed with adrenaline, shivering in the cold October night.  Once things quieted down, the police left, only giving out a warning, so I guess we all really lucked out.  I looked around, and spotted my friend down the street.

“Hey, sweet, you got out,” he grinned.

“Yeah, I’ve been out,” I grumbled.

“It’s okay.  That was probably the worst party I’ve been at.  Where’s your jacket?”

Guess where I left it?

I let out a word that I’m not keen on repeating on this blog.  I had left my jacket inside the house.  The house that the police were emptying out.

“It’s okay,” my friend assured me, “we’ll get it tomorrow or something.”

I never saw that jacket again.

The two of us walked on and joined a group of people who said they were going to a different party—one that apparently was less crowded.  As much as I wanted to just go home, I thought to myself that surely this party wasn’t going to be that bad.  So we loaded up into his car, and headed to the next party.  And as we were going, we were all reassured that it would be better.  And I was with them.  There was no way there could be another party that was this crowded, obnoxious, and just completely awful as the last one I was at.

And so I left and walked straight to my friend’s car.  Or at least where I thought his car would be.  If I remembered where we parked.  So I tried calling him.  Twice.  Nothing.  I assumed he was still inside, so I wandered back towards the house, only to immediately stop and reassess the choices I had made during the night.

I ended up walking home in just my Danny Phantom T-Shirt.  In 28 degree weather.  The only thing keeping me warm was my anger at how dumb I was for going to these parties and the hope that it was still early enough in the night to buy some grilled cheese sandwiches that my dorm building sold on weekends.  Turns out wading through crowds of illegal drunkards is a good way to whet your appetite.

Finally, I stepped down onto campus.  My dorm building was in sight!  It was all almost over.  For the first time since the sun went down, I genuinely smiled.

And then my phone rang.

And that’s when I decided that the only party I’d ever need was a party with me, a mug of tea, and the internet.

Take that as you will.