The summer after freshman year, Rach and I would take the el from by our folks' houses in the 'burbs, usually with road pops (or el pops, as it were) and make our way up to the Northside to sit at Tim and JT's campus apartment they had for the summer, and usually we'd be loaded by the time we got there. I mean, the guys may not have been there, but we sure were. They had things like "class" and "work" that they would attend. LOSERS.
I believe there were several days when we called into "work" (work=painting houses with a bunch of stoners (we were not at all stoners) with a "boss" who was like a year older than us and not cut out for management. At least not management of slackers and stoners who were supposed to paint houses and one time painted a whole house with the wrong paint) and had Gatorodka in our water bottles by 8am. Wow.
Anyway, when we would go out drinking, all underage-like at Loyola, we'd come across some strange characters. Do strange things...
Like Raj. Who was...vaguely Indian, maybe? And wore like a caftan....well not a caftan, not full length. And really loved the song "I Will Survive" which, of course we'd all bust a move dancing to at Cheers (which last I checked was no longer a bar, but instead some kind of child care or youth center. Oh man. If those walls could talk...well, let's just say kids shouldn't be around if those walls were talking). Anyway, Raj, who was like our BFF after about 4 pitchers of "Red Dog" or "Icehouse" or whatever the cheapest thing we could get a pitcher of, would always belt out the song, and at the beginning, he'd sing "At first I was afraid, I was petrifissed..." Love it.
And then there was the common issue where we'd have no place to stay, and one time (maybe more than once...) asked someone if they lived on campus. No? Well, do you live near campus? Um, can we just stay at your place? We drove up here and are LOADED and cannot drive home (I cannot even imagine how bad it must have been for us to even admit that). That's cool with you? Great! Thanks! Truly a great way to make new friends and the like.
And dancing...Oh my god. I mean, I guess we still dance at weddings, but come on, we went to bars and danced. On purpose. Like fools. Not like the KBGs (not to be confused with the KGB) who would hog the dance floor everytime "Bizarre Love Triangle" came on, which, in retrospect, is an odd choice for a sorority to identify with, but we'd dance our pants off. Not literally, of course, we weren't that sort. But we danced. Pants on.
Making inexplicable lists (I came across one not too long ago, in stuff from my mom's. I have to find it) about things we love about the bar we went to. Things such as "Look like ass and still get ass" and "$3.50 pitchers!" and also included people we hated (that night, anyway) and people we loved (likely bought us shots).
Calling the bar in advance to see who was working the door to see if we could get in.
Asking homeless people to park the car because it was a really tight parking spot. Even they wouldn't steal my POS Skyhawk with a leaking sunroof and disabled radio.
Tim filling a vodka bottle with water and then, when we we would all be hanging on the beach, whipping it out and appalling families by taking generous swigs out of it throughout the day.
Ahhh, those were the days. Totally a lifetime and a half ago. Getting harder to remember the craziness with each year. Actually impressed I remember any of it...