This weekend has been marked by various Halloween parties all over campus – everyone is providing excuses for not doing work. Being the wild party guy you all know and love, I did my very best to check out as many of these parties as possible. Each was unique in its crappiness, so I deem it necessary to create some form of objective scale to measure what truly makes a good party.
The two most typical measures of the grandness of a party are the number of people whoshow up and how many people hook up. This first feature has always confused me. Nobody, no matter how popular they are, can have enough “good” friends to fill this quota and so invariably, you are left with a smattering of people you secretly look down on and deem as low level or subsistent friends. As for hooking up, we all need a little casual fun from time to time – however, I’m not about to let some party claim all the glory for my hard work. If I met you at a party and you hooked up with me, you can be sure it had nothing to do with the party and everything to do with me. Hey, it’s my column and I can write whatever I want!
My cockiness has not always served me well. Thus, to balance out the golden shining image you all must have of me, I will now tell you an embarrassing story to take me down a notch or two. Friday night I was eating Taco Bell for dinner, as usual. I really enjoy the Grilled Stuft Burrito – I find it filling, satisfying and almost sensual. This seemingly random detail will come into play later, I assure you.
As I finished my burrito, I felt a twinge in the old gut and thought perhaps I should go to the bathroom, but time was running out, so I passed on this opportunity. Later that night, a bunch of my friends and I went to a party in a suite. The place was filled with people we did not know and thus it should have scored high on the traditional party scale. However, no one was really feeling the party, and after a few minutes, we decided to head out. However, I had a few drinks in me and decided to relieve the old bladder before we left.
Dear lord, the Taco Bell had its revenge on me. I am talking out-of-control-get-this stuff-out-of-me-right-now kind of poop! I was frantically trying to hurry up, but the smell was just awful. Suddenly, I heard a knock on the door. Apparently, a line was beginning to form. Pressure does not really help matters when you are in the bathroom, and I was already at the 20-minute mark. By now, people were yelling and knocking constantly – as if I didn’t hear them the first 50 times! Did they think that I just died in there or something, kneeled over my porcelain savior?
Finally, I finished, went to flush the toilet and heard a pathetic whoosh sound. Water stirred a bit and then stopped. There was no escape – no window for me to climb out of and no magic ninja-style vanishing smoke. People were going to know what my poop looks like! How can one live that shame down?
In desperation, I jammed the handle down one last time and the whoosh grew and grew to a mighty sound and whisked away my awful shame. I emerged triumphant, only to be faced with several angry strangers who knew exactly what I had just done in there. I had become that unwanted guest that they all laughed about the next morning.
This is where the evaluation standards of a party come back into play. After a situation like this, you realize that having a good party isn’t the amount of strangers you can get to come or the amount of random hookups – it’s about having a good time with your friends and leaving the place with story to pass down to your children. Enter the sappy instrumentals and fade to black.
Kutcher can be reached at jkutcher@campustimes.org.
