It’s 4:48 PM, and you’re in the back of a liquor store that looks like Hurricane Katrina hit it because it’s the last day of class, which means two things: Mom is going to leave you a voicemail asking about when she needs to book your flight home, and it’s time to drink. Every college has at least one liquor store that would accept a Dave & Busters card as a form of ID and regularly serves more underage kids than Little Saint James. You have spent the last two weeks scrambling out of Venmos like 2006 Mike Vick, so it’s time for you to buy the beer for dye. After you wish your friend with like four teeth behind the counter a good day, you hop into your friends car, and make your way to a backyard that at this point is so disgustingly noxious between people peeing in the corner and cigarette buts that somebody who witnessed Three Mile Island first hand would be in awe of its toxicity. After people pretend to like you a little more than usual because you stroll in with two racks, you guys start throwing dreidels around like the day one of Hunnakah.
Right before the teams are matched, the dye God rolls in. Every guy friend group has a dye player so good that nobody wants to play against him, and nobody wants to play with him. A kid that’s Pele with his feet, and Visquel with his hands, who tore his rotator cuff playing high school baseball and now wreaks havoc on a dye table with Corona-styled letters on it. He hands you your first L of the day, which is fine because it’s sunny outside, so now is a good time to go to Gremlin Mode to smoke cigarettes on the roof. There are people in this country depleted and defeated. As someone who also struggles with mental health, I can tell you from first hand some bogues shirtless on a roof while the chorus of Free Bird echoes out of a speaker that’s seen more shit than an inner-city social worker is the cure for depression.
About two and a half hours into dye, you can decipher who will make it out tonight, who will need to take a little trip to Aspen before going out tonight, and who’s gone forever, Aaron Hernandez. You yourself, you’re in the pocket. You just need an ACT Prep pill, some Doordash, and DeMar Derozan over points/ Nuggets Moneyline to hit. As you sit there right before, tip off one of your friend’s roles up and says, “Guys, pause. That kid that helps run the TFM Tik Tok profile, yeah yeah, the one with a crooked nose, he told me that if we go to his Tik Tok profile and download the Lucra app, all of our questions about The Las Vegas shooting will be answered.”
You head back to your house around halftime because it’s poopy time, and you also need a shower. Once you’re ready to go…
