During February of my freshman year, my roommate Lane and I won four straight games of beer pong. For him, not a big deal. For me, it was like Dave McClure going 5-for-5 from the three-point line.
But in the fifth game, we got creamed-creamed so badly that we had to do a naked run. Not expecting to go through with the nude escapade, I looked over at Lane and was surprised to see him whipping off his jeans. As any good friend would do, I unbuttoned my polo, unzipped my pants and headed for the door.
Two steps out the door, I slipped in a patch of mud, and my not-too-pretty naked body crashed to the ground. Determined (and a bit drunk), I picked myself up, didn't look back and continued running around Wannamaker.
As we were coming down the home stretch (i.e., the Wanny fire lane), more than 100 people were waiting to cheer us on and witness our photo finish (yes, there were photos; and yes, there was a YouTube video).
I often tell this story at semiformal dinners, especially ones in which hardly anyone at the table knows anyone else. I use it to jump-start similar embarrassing stories. And it always works.
Take, for instance, a recent semiformal dinner. I was sitting next to a sophomore couple. They had barely said a word all night. I assumed their most embarrassing story would involve falling off the bed while watching "The Lion King."
But one night freshman year, they had passed out in a dorm-room bed after a night at Shooter's. The next morning, the boyfriend woke up his girlfriend and told her she had puke covering her chest. She looked down and saw the dry and crusty vomit. She was mortified. But then she rolled over, and the boyfriend saw that there was also puke covering her back. At which point the boyfriend realized his mistake and said to her, "Actually, I think I puked all over you." How romantic.
The lesson: Drinking too much and sharing a bed with someone else can lead to disastrous results. My two senior year roommates, Lane and Fitz, learned this lesson the hard way.
A few weeks ago, I took a trip to The Masters with my two roommates and another friend, Chris. We threw back one too many Thursday night at the Best Little Martini Bar in Aiken, S.C. When we stumbled back to the hotel, Chris and I passed out in one bed, and Lane and Brian shared the other.
Around six in the morning, Brian got up to use the bathroom. When he got back in bed, he heard Lane rolling over. Before he knew what was happening, Brian felt Lane's hand reaching around his body and then grabbing his left nipple. And as Lane squeezed it, Brian also felt a soft kiss on his back-not exactly Brian's idea of foreplay. He quickly turned over. At that moment, Lane woke up and realized what had occurred. They looked at each other, but neither knowing what to say, they rolled back over and went to sleep.
The next morning, when Lane shared this story with Chris and me, he told us, "I was so confused."
Fitz looked at Lane and replied, "You were confused...."
These stories certainly don't summarize a college experience. Doing that would require thousands of other stories-celebrating Texas Thursdays, dancing with My Man and finishing daily production with a healthy diet of Busch Light and DG's diatribes.
But as I reflect back on these stories and others like them, I realize they involve something more than acts of embarrassment and ineptitude caused by alcohol: What makes these stories great is close friends. To many people, this may seem like an obvious point. But to me, it's a point that in these stories-and more generally in my life-I often overlook.
Sean Moroney is a Trinity senior, online editor and former managing editor of The Chronicle.
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