It was the second morning in a row (okay, maybe there were a few days in between, but it sounds funnier this way) that Maddy had woken Sidney up.
"Hmmm...?" Sidney answered her cell phone, which then and there she vowed to silence at night.
"Do you think maybe I could borrow your car?" Maddy asked. "Just for a few minutes?"
Sidney knew exactly what this was about and greatly appreciated the fact that Maddy wanted to borrow the car, rather than have Sidney play chauffer again. The day before (or whenever exactly it was), Maddy simply had requested a ride to campus, not telling Sidney that she would be driving a party of two. Sidney had almost swallowed her tangerine Altoid when Maddy walked out of her bay with an UHU (unidentified hook-up). In the car ride to West (because that was where said UHU lived), Sidney had felt like a mom making awkward conversation to try to avoid the fact that her daughter was hooking up.
For upperclassmen, the "walk of shame" can take three basic forms: 1) the drive home; 2) the ride request or 3) the pick-up. Maddy's was an example of the second, when neither party has a car at the given point in time.
The first, of course, is the MVP of the system. Its telling variable is the time at which it occurs. A pre-9 a.m. departure time is generally indicative of a "roll-and-scream"--as in, when you roll over the next morning, you are so horrified at what you find next to you that you scream. The natural post-roll-and-scream response is to try (ineffectively) to correct for the previous night's utter lack of judgment (read: beer) and make the person leave immediately; maybe if they leave soon, they were never even there (keep dreaming). You know you are a victim of this when the car does not come to a complete stop when you are told to jump. On the other hand, a 3 p.m. ride after a noon breakfast bodes well.
The third is also a popular favorite. Daisy, for one, has mastered the move. Her friends double as her a.m. version of Charlene's. One morning it's 203 Watts, then 611 Watts, then 603 Watts.... One could always tell from the tone in Daisy's voice (not to mention the time of the call) how acceptable the hookup was.
"Hehe, I might need a ride... I'm on (shocker) Watts" = Hot.
"Umm, could you please come get me... now... from the house by the house we were at last night" = Embarrassing beyond words.
"Haha, I'm at [location bleeped out to protect the innocent]. Can you bring us breakfast and come cuddle?" = Best friend bed crash.
It was not always like this. Like the diagram of evolution, that starts as a hunched over crawl and ultimately ends walking upright, the walk of shame evolved from slipping between dorm doors into slipping out of two-door cars. Freshman year, it is as simple as walking between rooms and pretending you were just coming out of the bathroom. Unless, that is, if you slept on West. Then you can take the East-West bus, a one-way ticket to utter humiliation. Or pull the let's-first-walk-to-the-Blue-Zone-and-then-drive-to-East, doubling the bus time because Duke's parking rivals its Coach Franks-era football team.
Sophomore year perhaps marks the peak of the walk of shame bell curve: All you have to do is walk between quads. Just do it before classes (or, better yet, church).
Other fun modes of transportation can break up the cycle. The cab of shame (very desperate to leave) and the pledge (because if you have them, you should use them) are two seldom-used goodies.
But the whole process does not have to be shameful. A freshman guy reflected on his overnight with a sophomore on West. "Going to the bus stop could have been a walk of shame, but it most definitely was not. It was a strut of pride. I had a bounce in my step and the biggest smile ever on my face."
That is what walks of shame should strive toward. This column (if you didn't notice) made no progress in solving world peace, but maybe it put a little smile on your face this Friday (not to mention made you look at the guy next you in Alpine--yes, the one with the wrinkled dress shirt that smells like Maker's--with a "I Know What You Did Last Night" eye).
Whitney Beckett is a Trinity senior. Her column appears every other Friday.
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