The walk of shame

I was enjoying some Sunday reading on a bench on Main West when I heard it-a strange clip-clopping sound ringing out into the still morning air.

Like the stray cats that prowl around or the skittish squirrels that dart from tree to tree, I saw yet another elusive creature of the Quad: a girl in high heels doing her Sunday morning Walk of Shame.

For those of you who don't know, the Walk of Shame is when a young man or woman has spent the night in someone else's room and must make that seemingly endless trek back across campus the following morning.

I was intrigued by this rare sighting (after all, Walk of Shamers usually cling to the shadows like cat burglars) and put down my reading to see if I could spot any others. It was early Sunday after a Saturday night full of semiformals and mixers, so the picking was good.

Because we have all been there-and because we can all learn from their examples-I have created a guide to the different types of Walk of Shamers I saw Sunday and assessed their strategies for your future edification:

The Early Bird: The Early Bird awakens to find early morning sunlight illuminating the face of the person they spent the night with. If that face belongs to someone they neither wanted nor expected it to, the Early Bird then flees the scene of the crime ASAP.

If particularly skilled, they can silently grab their stuff and creep out of the room, hopefully avoiding creaky floorboards on the way. Or, they can mumble some excuse about an early group meeting and run before further questions are asked.

Pros: The Early Bird gets to avoid any awkward "morning-after" conversation. Also, fewer people are around campus if the Walk of Shame occurs at 7 a.m. They say the early bird catches the worm, and this Early Bird can worm their way out of a potentially uncomfortable situation.

Cons: Sorry, but no one actually believes you are on the men's lacrosse team and have the right to dress as such.

The Kamikaze: The Kamikaze, waking too late for The Early Bird and too embarrassed to borrow clothes for The Transvestite, has little choice but to say, "To hell with it!" and make a blind run. Or in this case, a blind stagger in heels.

The Kamikaze is always most humorous to watch. Clothed in full semiformal or club attire, they hurry back across campus, head slung low like a receiver charging down the field. Models on the catwalks in Milan never walked so fast in heels as these girls on their Kamikaze missions of social suicide.

Pros: You gotta have some admiration for the gutsiness of these broads to make such bold and obvious statements on a Sunday morning, when most people are on their way to church. They are letting the whole world know that they went out with someone, they went back with someone and now they are going home.

Cons: I think it's pretty obvious here.

Da Man: Da Man is an example of the gross double standard that exists between male and female college students. While the Walk of Shame is a cause of, well, shame, for young women, it becomes more of a Strut of Smut for the guys.

Da Man got some the night before. He wants the whole world to know. I saw one guy Sunday morning wearing an untucked dress shirt, a suit jacket and a tie untied around his neck, strolling across the Quad like he was going for a walk in the park. Taking his sweet time, he even stopped to send a text message, something probably along the lines of: "Yo dude, u'll never guess what happened last nite..."

Pros: Da Man is lucky that man-whoring happens to be the desirable thing on campus, so he might as well milk it for all it's worth.

Cons: Everyone who sees him thinks he is a total toolbag.

Hopefully this short guide will help you on your next Walk of Shame (maybe even this weekend!) And perhaps by starting a dialogue about this college phenomenon, women can even learn to own the Walk of Shame the same way that men have.

Stacy Chudwin is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every other Thursday.