Bobby D'Angelo
I wake up to my roommate screaming, “FACK BABY THURSDAY BABY FACK,” and I’m on cloud nine. Any other day of the week, his botched impression of White Claw Gabe makes me want to go back in time and get his Mom to read some of these Pro-Choice Impact Instagram posts, but it’s Thursday, and in approximately nine hours, I won’t have to open Canvas for the weekend. I throw on the cleanest underwear I have, what used to be white Nike socks, an oversized DZ rush shirt from a girl that was a drunk mistake and walk into my kitchen. My Thursday breakfast is usually a barter agreement between myself and my roommate’s girlfriend: I pretend the fat Indian baby she shows me on Tik Tok is “hilarious” and she gives me rips of the lush ice puff bar her Dad paid his way through law school for her to lose in an Uber later in the day. As I make way through what’s left of our front door, I remember that my Native American Anthropology Class partner is hot, so I have to get all of my farts out before class. Nothing starts a Thursday morning off like ripping ass to The Spins by Mac Miller while begging my Mom to Venmo me in exchange for calling my Grandma and wishing her a Happy Birthday via Facetime.
As my second class of the day ends, I’m prepping for my first and potentially only meal of the day at Wendy’s. Here’s the thing that nobody will tell you about being in your early twenties: unless you don’t go out or you have parents that spoil you, you’re going to have what I’d call forty percent of an eating disorder. It’s not severe enough where it needs to be addressed, but you’re definitely malnourished to a certain degree. For most of us, one twelve hundred calorie meal and about nine Keystone Lights serve as our food pyramid. And just as I’m aggressively tapping through the same “Almost Friday” picture of a minimized version of Jonah Hill on a Jet Ski twenty fucking times, I become aware that I’ve lost track of time, and it’s time to hustle to my last class of the day. My last class of the day is my worst class of the week. Trying to collaborate on a group project with a bar-tard from SAE, a nursing major with multiple Pacsun stickers on her hydro flask, the fat-app version of Billie Eilish, and a theater kid all on a stomach full of Wendys is a painstaking process I’d wish on nobody. I volunteer to take control of two slides on our ethnography project and check GroupMe under the table. The message I sent two hours ago has twenty likes. Holy fuck, I’m a god.
Tonight a few other fraternities have formal, so the ratio at this pregame will be very reminiscent of CNN headlines for school shootings: a lot of white guys. After class ended, I hit 7-11 to buy a vape, so all that’s left to do is shower and get a good poop in. I don’t know what it is, but end of the day poops give me all of the positive side effects of weed without the anxiety. For the first time in what feels like a long time, I’m happy. When I get to the satellite house, I’m reminded of how nice the rare all-male pregame can be. There’s a lot of talk about safe spaces on college campuses, but I think for an average guy, that safe space comes in a dark room with EDM bumping and seven years of jail time being consumed on a plywood table.
Our Uber pulls up just as our friend group’s “elbows” guy is minute three into his tangent on my beer pong partner. Jared’s a cool kid most of the time, but he’s also a fucking hardo and a serial Raftus. This Uber XL claims it’s his first day, and he’s in for a street because my boy sitting shotgun took enough Xanax to keep a widowed fifty-year-old Mom at bay for a week. By the third time he pleaded with his co-pilot to wear a mask, I even felt bad enough to the point where I even told him to stop being a dick and physically held that shit over his ears. When we finally arrive at the bar, our douchebag friend who claims that he’s a “promoter” leads us past the fifteen-minute line. Sure, in reality, I’m a five-eight guy with credit card debt and vertigo, but it’s pretty nice to feel like Vinny Chase for a fleeting moment. All the Instagram stories my friend has made for this bar seem like they’re paying off, and some greasy-haired guy leads us to a table with a handle of Titos that every other loser buying a table is going to pay five-hundred bucks for. For roughly thirty minutes, we are BALLING. Girls are coming over to take pictures, almost naked bottle service girls are pretending to take an interest in my theories on Bitcoin’s collapse, and we’re drinking Vodka straight out of the bottle. Slowly…eerily…I begin to lose control of my functions. My body is aware a blackout is occurring, but my mind is convinced that I’m built different than anybody else at this table. When the bottle runs out, I don’t take the minute to face-scan my way into Bank of America; I’m buying rounds of tequila for the hot girl from Native American Anthropology Class and her friends. I think Native American Anthropology Class girl and I are making out; I’m not even sure; all I know is that I feel like Johnny Manziel circa 2014. I’m a fucking legend. I’m a fucking god. How do I not have my own Wikipedia page yet? I’m going to own everyone that doubted me growing up.
I wake up the following day on my couch, shoes still on and covered in piss. Four emails from BOA and a text from an unknown number saying, “Jordan found ur wallet. Pls get home safe.” I hate my life.
