Alana Liu
On the first Monday of the school year, I stripped down to my underwear in the hallway outside my dorm. I’d called my suitemates several times, begging them to bring a towel from my room, to no avail. Mud plastered my jeans, rainwater clogged my wool socks and brand new leather shoes, and under no circumstances was I bringing that filth into my dorm. I’d chosen to spend the first day partying in the row of houses behind Payne Whitney Gym. Like the rest of the underclassmen flocking to the dimly-lit backyard of 13 Lake Place, I’d come unprepared.
The first few minutes of the party, my friends and I danced like we were being electrocuted, the electricity jumping from sweaty back to sweaty back, jolting through our limbs and inducing sporadic “frat flicks.” Whatever rational concerns I had regarding the sweaty butts gyrating against my freshly-laundered shirt, the fist-sized holes in the walls of the house, or the increasing volume of falling rain were dismissed as the wannabe DJ blasted “Guess” by Charli XCX.
It was only when the playlist looped back around to play Nelly Furtado’s “Promiscuous Girl” for the eighth time that I looked down to the mud below me. My brand new shoes were lost in a murky puddle of rain and spilled vodka. Mud caked my favorite pair of jeans, brown rain water pooled in my socks, and my friend’s face bore a streak of filth, running from her jaw to her smeared mascara. It was only then we identified the first casualty of the first week: our dignity.
After sprinting through Bingham Hall nearly in the nude, that loss was made abundantly clear, which made me wonder: what else had first years lost in the first week?
High up in Sam Torres’ ’28 dorm, I heard a tale of loss and questionable gain. Sam told me she “lost four socks [her] first time doing laundry” but, as if the divine scales of Bingham Hall laundry were righting themselves, miraculously gained “someone’s stained underwear [her] second time.” Sam described the newly acquired underwear as “overly stained and discolored” and claimed she was “appalled.” If you’re willing to exchange your dignity for your missing pair of not-so-slightly stained underwear, hurry over to Sam’s trash can, before it’s too late!
Down in the depths of the Humanities Quadrangle, Siena Valdivia ’28 whispered another tale of freshman woe. While “locking in” at the Trumbull Library, Siena was locked in and trapped in the Trumbull Library after trying in vain to push on a pull door. Thanks to the soundproofed glass and an empty dining hall below, no one could hear or see Siena’s cries for help. An upperclassman opened the door and freed her from her imprisonment, Siena made it out of the library — her dignity, not so much.
Last night, Liam Hughes ’28 spilled his account of his dining hall disaster. After filling his Saybrook burger with ample toppings and “lots of sauce,” Liam tiptoed across the dining hall to his seat, balancing the burger on the edge of his plate. By a humiliating but all too predictable twist of fate, his burger fell off the plate, sauce splattering everywhere. Liam moved quickly to save the disastrous moment, getting “on his knees in front of a lot of people” to clean the mess with a paper towel. Like the decimated burger, his dignity was a bit hard to recover.
The transition into college was never meant to be a dignified one. We were meant to lock ourselves in libraries, spill our food in front of the masses, and sprint around in our underwear in front of our freshman peers. But hey, a year from now we’ll find this funny. Hopefully.