Box: The Female Perspective Part 2 [ALCOHOL]

BOX house has the reputation for being the best tailgate spot on campus, although perhaps I am a bit biased. Say what you want about the costumes and the intoxicated dancing, but when you get right down to it, it’s all about the booze. There is no house on campus with such abundant quantities of cheap vodka, cheap whiskey, and cheap beer; nor does anyone else give it away so freely. Before Al and I started dating, I had never consumed any vodka that was of lower quality than Smirnoff. However, my standards dropped considerably when I was introduced to Al’s favorites: Crown Russe, Crystal Palace, Kamchatka, and of course, Mohawk. As is usual for this blog, I’d like to dedicate this portion of my entry to some of my favorite drunken memories of the BOX house inhabitants.

• B. Russ: I met Brian Russell on the evening of his twenty first birthday. I didn’t have much time to form a first impression, although I noted that he seemed drunk. This impression was cemented when I almost slipped going down the stairs the next morning; they were coated with his fresh vomit. Ah, memories.

• Paul: BOX had enjoyed a relaxed afternoon together watching a Michigan football game on TV. As usual, this meant that several house members would celebrate/drown the memory of the occasion by blacking out. Paul spent the later part of the afternoon alternately passing out and thrashing around on the second floor landing. Al and I heard him falling down stairs, hammering on doors, and finally calling out to Barty in the voice of one who knows he has been beaten: “Matt. Matt. I need help. I just want to go to bed.” Realizing that his friend would not be physically able to get up, Barty finally came upstairs and half-guided and half-carried Paul to his bed.

• Brick: As Welcome Week 2008 began winding down, BOX house was still going strong. I was standing in the living room making a little speech about god knows what to those assembled, using the metal shaft of a golf club to gesture and accentuate the key points of my rhetoric. All of a sudden, Brick came tearing down the stairs and marched right out the door. I chased him outside, still waving my golf shaft, calling, “Bricky Bear!” Brick proceeded to throw a chair across the yard screaming, “Fuck My Life!” I watched, open-mouthed, as Brick began hightailing it toward central campus. But the best was yet to come. A heavyset girl came out onto the porch, slipping on her heels and calling Brick‘s name. I poked her with my golf shaft and said, in my best Southern drawl, “And what’s your name, honey child?” The circumstances prevent me from remembering it, but I do recall her chasing Brick all the way down State Street, buttoning her blouse as she went.

• Al: The stories I could tell. One of my favorites was definitely the Northwestern tailgate. I was giving a campus tour that morning and so had the misfortune of not being able to attend the last tailgate of the season. I first realized that things had gotten a little out of hand when my friend Rachel called me and said, “Al’s walking down the middle of State Street, screaming that he found ten bucks.” I chuckled as I came out of the Michigan Union, then did a double take when I saw Al before my very eyes. Rather than walking on the sidewalk, Al, in all his bear-suited glory, was just strolling down the side of the road as angry motorists swerved and honked. I’ve never been so proud as when I had to pull Al out of the street and convince him to turn around and walk back toward BOX house without touching or yelling at the other people (many of them parents) who were walking towards the stadium. The second time I saw Al that day was when I attempted to leave BOX house and he caused an enormous clusterfuck in the doorway by trying to make out with me for an extended period of time. The third time I saw him was by far the best. Rachel and I only stayed at the game for one quarter, and as we walked back toward campus, I caught sight of the bear yet again. Once again, Al was shunning the conventional sidewalk and was instead walking in the grassy ditch beside it. He was babbling and gesturing animatedly and I wondered who he was talking to. I was hardly surprised when I realized no one was there. Al maintains that he was, in fact, singing, but this feeble attempt at dignity is accepted by no one.

My sorority sisters are sometimes shocked when I regale them with tales of the drunken debauchery at BOX house. At times like these I simply remind them that the BOX house motto is not, “Do Good,” like Delta Gamma’s but rather, “Has anyone seen my dignity?”