Columbia University in the American South? Bwog decided to simulate that possibility.

You wake up on this fine Saturday morning and decide to venture out of your room in search of breakfast. It’s October, so you put on a pair of Norts (Nike shorts) and a blinding colorful tee shirt and head out. On your way to Ferris, you debate what you should get for breakfast. An omelet? Avocado toast? Yogurt and berries? However, once you enter Ferris, you realize that there is no omelet station. In fact, there are barely any options that include anything resembling fruit or vegetables. Disappointed, you hop in the Chick-Fil-A line and pick up an order of chicken minis (mini fried chicken sandwiches) and a large sweet tea.

After that nutritious breakfast, you decide to catch up on some work. After walking into the (1) library on campus, you’re very suddenly aware that you’re the only person there. Oh right, there’s a football game later. No, it’s not Homecoming, silly—it’s just the typical Saturday home game.

You leave the library to walk, sorry, drive to your apartment several miles away to change for the pre-game tailgate. After trying on several different blue and white outfits, you pick your favorite, adding the usual essentials of feathery earrings and cowboy boots. After a 35-minute Uber ride complete with backroads, barren farmland, and the occasional Fast & Furious U-turn, you and your friends thank the Uber driver and arrive at the tailgate. Except you’re not right at the tailgate, you’re a twenty-minute walk away from said tailgate because the Uber couldn’t get closer due to traffic. Did I mention it’s 95 degrees outside? Sorry, I thought that one was a given.

After a muddy, sweaty, omg-my-makeup-is-sliding-off-my-fucking-face stroll, you enter frat boy heaven. A sea of different fraternity tents lies in front of you, their stereo systems competing for the Guinness World Record of Ruptured Eardrums. Each has a multitude of girls on elevated surfaces (see: Barstool), boys getting a running start and then jumping onto, and consequently breaking, fold-up tables, and bartending pledges in bow ties pretending to be sober. You ask a pledge for a White Claw, but they’re all out. Shocker. Maybe if you got there on time, say 10 am, you would’ve gotten one. So, your options are: A, drinking the punch created by the frat pledges, or B, asking one of the pledges to squirt the wine bag into your mouth that definitely has mono by now. Of course, you go with Option A because you don’t want to get sick for the rest of the semester.

Four cups of punch later, and you’re not feeling too hot. This is a metaphor because obviously you’re feeling hot. The sweat never ends, except, you’re feeling nauseous and light-headed. You try to figure out if you’ve been drugged by the punch, but the thumping music is too loud. You try to remember if you drank any water today, but you probably haven’t had water for a few days now. I mean water water people, not sweet tea made with water.

Unfortunately, you do not make it to the game. After feeling like you’re going to pass out, you take the long Uber ride alone and eventually hit-the-hay on your apartment’s couch. Half of your friends opt to go to the game (ew, another sweaty walk away), and the other half stay at the tailgate till they get kicked out. After a dining hall dinner of subpar Panera, you decide to join your friends for a GNO at the bars. After all, you missed the game AND the rest of the tailgate, so why miss out?

You’re excited for the sun to set and to go out (a slightly less sweaty endeavor), but GNO turns out to be as disappointing as the tailgate. You forget that you were probably drugged earlier in the day, get too drunk off of the $1 vodka sodas, and take one for the team by finishing the communal Chug Jug (Chug Jug: a Bud Light pitcher filled with vodka, Everclear, and blue syrup, also known as poison).

Your insides are dying. You still haven’t had any water. You can’t seem to find some anywhere, either, just sweet tea and lemonade. God, why is there so much sweet tea? You Uber with your friends from the bars to JJ’s, which is another long ride, and hope to feel better there.

At JJ’s, you finally see it. The holy grail herself, the smoothie machine, sits unbothered and unaware, with no line for you to easily feel hydrated and happy. You grab a cup, salivating, and pull the lever—and it’s more sweet tea.

Did I mention that this happens every weekend? Every. Single. WEEKEND.

Low, but make it Southern via Bwog Archives