A simple solution

If you don’t have the privilege of seeing/hearing/smelling hordes of frat guys doing whatever it is frat guys do every weekend, you must not live by the Beta house. After being pushed to his limit, one resident of Watt has proposed a challenge to the fraternity in the following letter:

Dear Beta,

During the course of the past few months, living across from you has been quite an experience. I’m not entirely certain what it was that first inspired my antipathies. Perhaps it was your barbecue that filled my room with acrid smoke on the first week back. Perhaps it was your mediocre, yet determined, guitar player plucking out bad 2000s rock. And maybe, just maybe, it was one of the multiple occasions on which you forgot to turn the lights off before fucking in front of the windows. While the aforementioned are comparatively trivial annoyances, it is safe to say we got off on the wrong foot.

As a resident of Watt, I have been involuntarily subjected to nearly all of your idiosyncrasies, or at least those that cannot be contained by your roof and four walls. I want to make it perfectly clear that I’m not admonishing you for the occasional slip-up. I get it. We’re human. We like to have fun and dance to loud music. Such things are cool, all good, whatever. However, you’ve made it abundantly clear that you aren’t satisfied to just have fun amongst yourselves.

Like the other resident [sic] of Watt, Hogan, Kappa, Q House, and the IRC; I had the delightful experience of being awoken at 4:23 AM by “The Circle of Life” being blasted from your sound system. Don’t get me wrong; I love the Lion King as much as the next guy, but you’ve thoroughly abused my love for Disney classics.

As I angrily lay in bed, I contemplated doing a number of things. I considered yelling, a fruitless act already undertaken by the brothers of Kappa. I considered calling public safety, a tactic that has been historically futile. And I considered turning my roommate’s bottle of 151 into a Molotov cocktail, as well as the ensuing prison sentence I would receive. But because I work on weekends (a working class experience your decadent asses clearly aren’t sensitive to), I opted to go back to sleep as quickly as possible. As much as I’d love to forgive a first-time offense, this is the fourth time you’ve done this in the past two months.

In my time spent attempting to understand you (perhaps in futility), I’ve noticed recurring commonality shared by your brothers: a need to present yourselves as ostentatiously masculine, a sort of peacocking if you will. Relative to Kappa, your comparatively less annoying neighbor, I believe this trait is what distinguishes you as a fraternity. You try SO HARD to act fratty and obnoxious that it leads me to question if you might not be collectively compensating for something. Your impossibly loud sound system is something of note in this regard. Maybe it was daddy’s way of making up for what he couldn’t give you in your genes (double entendre intended).

To settle this feud once and for all, I offer you a challenge: your president and I will compare dick sizes, measured erect and from the base. The bigger man wins. It’s as simple as that. If you win, I will yield to your sound system and questionable, early morning music choices. If I win, the volume stays at or below standard party level at all times. Contact me if you accept. If not, you can anticipate collective retaliation upon your next transgression.

No Homo,
John Bryan

A true test of mettle via Shutterstock