Something peculiar happened one autumn morning in Dr. Propel’s Intro class. People started wearing suits. Business suits. Neckties and such. Again, this wasn’t the faculty (which wasn’t really into this sort of thing to begin with), but the kids in class. This wasn’t the norm. Up until now male students wore just about anything: t-shirt and jeans, maybe a collared shirt, and so on. Yeah, once in a while you got a buttoned-down shirt but never a tie, never a jacket. Never the inkling that it was the norm.
And it wasn’t just there in the Communication Building – male students all across campus were waltzing around in this elaborate costume. Had the entire male student population of the university suddenly cleaned itself up and decided to spend the week in their Sunday best? No, as I was to find out soon thereafter from some of my more jaded contemporaries, this was all about buying friendship.
Yes, Pledge Week had come to campus.
One of the funniest things about seeing these students stride about in their elaborate costumes was how out of place they looked. You know, the low-maintenance kids with wild Hair Bear Bunch manes or dicey five o’clock shadows that threw on whatever they could find in their closest the first thing in the morning and then wore that the rest of the day. But now that they were zealots-in-training for the bacchanalias that were to come they started each day with a shave and hair-comb, tie with blazers, khakis, and body-fluid colored ties. And boat shoes. I never understood how or why nautical fashion made it to the mainland.
Anyway, the idea – as best as I and my jaded contemporaries could tell – was that the kids had to dress-up to play with the big boys. And this is where those jaded contemporaries liked to point out stuff about elitism, schmoozing and boozing, and how mindless conforming meant all of ‘em looked the same no matter which group they were trying to buy their way into (groups with names like Alpha Trian, Mu Fan Chi, or Up Salon Snuh).
And so they came into classrooms in this get-up and tried to look nonchalant but it didn’t always work. When that kid in the back corner, who wears nothing but t-shirts and shorts every day, suddenly shows up in a suit – you know something’s up. When the kid who smells like eggs unexpectedly begins dousing himself in cologne – you know something’s up. When the guy who never says anything to anyone starts butting into conversations between girls – you know something’s up. More so, when it’s Monday again, when uniforms have been hematologically resealed and perfect hygiene isn’t a must for the eight o’clock Comp class – you know Pledge Week is over.
The silliness subsides. Life went on.
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Bulldoze the Fraternities
(Cherry Two Thousand)
Cherry 2000
From the album Taint
1998
