What you are about to read is a true story. It was my first Yale-Harvard experience. The terribleness of Harvard hasn’t been embellished.
How terrible was it? Here is some perspective — last year I was on the football team, and I still had more fun sleeping while everyone else partied than I did this year.
First of all, on Friday night, Yale kids outnumbered Harvard kids two to one. And every Harvard student seemed mad at the world (maybe because of all the Yale kids taunting them). Apparently, smiling was against Harvard’s policy. It was as though we were the freed Cuban prisoners to their 1980 Miami, a stark contrast to the lively, we’re-all-here-to-drink atmosphere we gave them a year ago.
After wandering the streets and making fun of the living dead, I mean Harvard students, our posse met up with a Harvard friend. He promised to lead us to a party. When we got there, the door was locked — the first sign of a raging party. After a few knocks, two semi-attractive girls answered the door, but no one else was inside. There was no music, no alcohol. We left.
Our Harvard friend suggested we go back to his room. We followed him to Mather, a bizarro Stiles with the same crappy room dimensions and courtyard artwork. Upon entering his room, we saw two dudes playing video games. Now, I am an avid video gamer, but on a Friday night at 11? These Harvard social life rumors couldn’t be true, could they?
Hallelujah! There was a beer pong table around the corner. No one was playing, naturally, so we pounced on the opportunity. One problem — they only had eight beers. Oh well, at least it was Beast Ice–
Midway through one of the two beer pong games, some guy came in the room griping about vomit in the toilet. Vomit? That means people are drinking, but there were no drunk people in sight. Maybe a flu epidemic was keeping the Harvard kids inside. Anyway, this guy was having a fit. You’d think someone kicked his dog. “Dude, just flush it, it’s a toilet,” one of us inferior Yalies suggested. The tool proceeded to walk to the door and mutter, “I gotta get out of here, people are starting to annoy me.”
If anyone knows this kid, please tell him we’re really sorry he left; we didn’t mean to smile in his presence.
After depleting the vast stash of beer in bizarro Stiles, we decided to see what the bar scene had to offer. On the way to the bars, a fleet of police cars raced down a back road and surrounded a gate to one of the dorms. Someone must have reported a smiler.
More walking, more Yale kids. More bars, more Yale kids. One bar, Hong Kong, had a 30-minute line filled with, you guessed it, Yale kids. Supposedly, Hong Kong was like an Asian Toad’s. Since we had no hunger for a Toad’s experience, we went back to our Yale friend’s house, which was the highlight of my night. If Harvard didn’t suck, I wouldn’t have watched the Pistons-Pacers riot for two straight hours, or, at the very least, I wouldn’t have remembered watching it. But I did remember watching it. Why did I remember watching it? Because I was sober. And why was I sober? Because Harvard sucks.
The next day, we woke up at 8:30, free of hangovers, which pretty much ruins the whole point of tailgating. We divvied up the alcohol and 21-year-olds so that we would pass the completely-necessary, not-at-all ridiculous vehicle inspections. We began walking in when a cop told us the tailgate didn’t start until 10:30. Ha, what a jokester, I thought. Turns out, he was serious. Apparently, driving in to drink and grill wasn’t tailgating. But if you walk in to drink and grill, that was tailgating.
After killing the next 50 minutes by making jokes like “Hey look, the Harvard president’s brunch. He can eat my ass,” we were allowed into the sacred tailgate area. Inside, clans of policemen were arbitrarily carding people with drinks. Were we in high school? Did I really have to keep my eyes peeled for these sting squads and put down my forty every time they were within 10 feet?
In addition, they were confiscating beer bongs. I guess the message they were trying to convey was, “You guys can’t binge drink, but if you get a wristband, you can get unlimited Budweiser and you can bring in 20 gallons of beer and one gallon of hard liquor — but you can’t binge drink.” After all their beer restrictions, Harvard authorities were surprised that more people drank hard alcohol, which led to more hospitalizations, citations and public urinations. It was so bad that they are already thinking of new policies for 2006.
But the people who really need to do some thinking are the Harvard students. After this experience, I learned why they are called the Harvard Crimson: They have permanent PMS. Yalies, I urge you to send this tale to any Harvard kids you know. Maybe they will open their eyes and stop being terrible. It’s a shame they won the game, because celebrating shouldn’t include libraries, Xbox and students from your rival school being the life of your campus.
We’ll be sure to give them a lesson next year. Until then, they should take some Midol.
Carl Williott was drunk Thursday night when his editor called him, but he is still the hottest guy she knows.