My Pledge Term

When the term 'pledge' comes to mind, many might think of mopping floors, cleaning toilets, drinking until comatose, being locked in a basement, the elephant walk, etc. Well, I can attest that my BOX pledge term was far worse than any elephant walk.

My frat journey began with a misstep freshman year. I joined a certain fraternity - that will remain nameless - and quickly learned that not all frats are created equal. After living in the local closet with bats all sophomore year, I soon grew displeased with my fraternity living quarters. After being sent to standards board week after week for excessive drinking and debauchery, I soon grew displeased with fraternity rules. And after some friends and I threw a party while the other brothers were at a date party I was not allowed to be at, my 'brothers' grew quite displeased with me.

Soon after my BOX journey began. It all started one night when my frustration with my fellow roommate, the bat that lived in the wall, came to a head. I was fed up with his bat antics, and I carried my pillow to BOX, where the infamous Al Girard was kind enough to let me sleep in his pigsty that he called a room. Later, Al was first to bring up the idea of living in the basement. Not long after, Andy and I were carrying our futon down State Street towards the 933 residency. I was retired from the supposed frat world, and entering into a world of real fratting off of faces. What lay ahead of me was months of a gruelling pledge term that I could have never imagined.

Yes, long before I enjoyed my nice lodging in the ever-spacious nook, I endured an entire semester in the depths of this fine establishment: the basement. Think of the worst basement you have ever encountered, and then imagine something twice as bad as that - then you will have a nice image of our lovely cellar. Some of the fine attributes associated with a way of life in our basement include: wearing your coat to bed to endure temperatures bordering on the freezing point, residing in a tent in hopes of sleeping without encounter of one of the many extra-large centipedes, a broad range of sleeping hours from 3:30 a.m. (when the last person stops watching television upstairs) until 8:00 a.m (when the first person conveniently decides to do their laundry), precipitation accumulating on the floor everytime the snow melts, and an ever-present odor seemingly rising from the mysterious drains. If that's not a pledge term, then I don't know what is.

When it comes down to it, though, these long months of hardship payed off in full. I have finally found my home. A place that accepts and endorses the things I truly love: tailgating before dawn, drinking until you can't feel feelings, and general bad decisions. And I have found family: the fellow alcohol connesieurs that share this humble abode with me (including Zola, who is nearing completion of his residency in the basement as well).