A Surprise Grab Bag of Notes

With the end of Initiation, I am suddenly free from all fraternal responsibility. For over a year I've had to go to all of our events, plan and execute members, and buy pledgeship stuffs out of my own pocket. No more. I am no longer in charge, and this means I can say whatever I want. Coconut, aluminum foil, galvanizing. There - I said it.

After the Initiation ceremony, a few of the new members and I went to IHoP and had unlimited pancakes. What a deal! For five dollars, they brought me eggs and ham and hashbrowns and yes, unlimited pancakes. It would have been perfect if I wasn't so sleepy. Also that night, I told the pledges at my table the story of when I was a fairy dancer in the University's production of A Midsummer's Night's Dream. They had never heard it before, which was surprising. I spent two months in intensive dance training before falling off the stage in our last performance and receiving an eight stitch scar. But I think the real punch line is fairy dancer. But it was a scary fairy. I'll tell you about it sometime.

Now, with all my free time, I'm quite at a loss. I'm looking for things to do. I want to implement a yes man policy: if ever a brother wants to go to dinner, go to Kansas, have a sleepover, watch a concert, needs a wingman, builds an ark, I'll say yes. No matter what. But I'm still waiting to be asked.

So instead I'm working on my thesis. I'm a Creative Writing major, and my thesis is a time travel novel. All the names are real, though the events have been changed to protect the entertainment value. Three characters are actually fraternity brothers. They all die. Two are shot by a man named Mitchell. One has a brain aneurism. Hazards of time travel.

Often I get curious about who reads my blogs, outside of the authorities. I've narrowed it down to a 18 to 22 male demographic. But for this post, I think I'll hold a contest. Whichever person posts the longest number, spelled out in words, in the comments section, I'll blog a complete lie about you and make you famous. Or, I'll kill you in my novel. You specify.

Today is the Pankration

Two years ago tonight, I created a monster, and by monster I mean the acronym M.O.N.S.T.E.R., More Oreos, No Strong Tea ETERNAL RAMPAGE! (exclamation mark my past self's emphasis, not present self mine). I acknowledge that I threw out grammar for the sake of the final acronym, and yes, I'll come close to but not entirely follow through with admitting that I started with the word monster and worked backwords. However, I can explain.

Two years ago tonight, I bought a gallon of Arizona Iced Tea and a package of Double Stuffed Oreos, along with several double-A batteries for my 360 controller and the game Mass Effect. This was the first Pankration, as I played from sundown to sunup the Monday before Thanksgiving. I skipped all my Tuesday classes.

Last year, with the same supplies, I logged twelve straight hours into Final Fantasy X. That Pankration heralded a new era of holiday, as I finished celebrating a week later. I played over thirty hours that week.

Previously, I have been the only person to honor the Pankration. My goal this year was to raise participation at least 10%. Even the Olympics can't claim to do that. Instead, through an aggressive marketing campaign that enslaved the pledges to promote my holiday, there's now over 250 people from multiple states and college campuses that will pankratronize. That's several month's worth of video games, in one night.

I got the name from my Classics teacher, Dr. Levine, who has hair like Kid from Kid 'n' Play, and huge black rimmed glasses that someone could punch through without touching the frames. He told me that the Pankration was an ancient Greek combat event where the only two rules were 1) no gouging of eyes, and 2) no biting. As apart of the Olympics, all nations competed in the event except the Spartans, who would never surrender and thus died in competition whenever they lost.

Piggybacking on the historical validity of the old Pankration, I linked from its Wikipedia page to create my own, which was sadly deleted. However, the talk page is still open. Visiting it, you will notice there is a strong and honorable fight between the editors of Wikipedia and some unknown elements. Those are pledges. I told them of the movement to delete the page, and they led a valiant crusade to keep the page legitimate as well as existant.

You can witness the argument go downhill, however, at the point where a user with the name "Half Man Half Rancor (Mancor)" enters the arena and challenges the editor who was our main antagonist, "Singularity42," to "prove that he is in fact a human and not a cyborg trying to infiltrate the plans for a mass expansion of the Pankration sensation." He then demands that Singularity42 cite his sources as to his humanity. At another point, he attempts to appeal to Mr. Wikipedia, and upon discovering there's no such person, he tries to spin that fact into the argument that made up things are still legitimate.

I haven't yet identified Half Man Half Rancor (Mancor).

I am proud, though, that we put up enough of a fight that one of the head editors of Wikipedia thought the issue had enough relevance to sum up the arguement after the page was deleted. He said this:

"The result was a snowball delete. The discussion has spawned a lot of confusion and some rancor. As for the confusion, the repeated references to [the article] Wikipedia is not for things made up one day made it appear that Wikipedia's standard for inclusion is existence. It's not. Instead, the issue here is notablity...But that has not swayed the consensus in the discussion, which is trending heavily and irreversibly delete. Where a discussion is certain to lead to only one outcome, it's time to close it."

I feel like this is an equivalent of a Supreme Court decision, which provides a precedent for all other similar minded cases. This is the Pankration's legacy. Also, no word yet if the editor meant to pun when he said the discussion spawned some rancors.

Capture the Officer

The pledge mission this week was Capture the Officer. For three days, from noon to midnight, pledges had to track down, chase, tackle, and tie up the executive officers of the fraternity. We did not go quietly. The police can attest to that, in at least one case.

Our pledges are divided up into four houses, named after four of the founding fathers of the fraternity. Each pledge mission is worth house points, and the cumulative house point total for the semester decides who wins the Area Cup, the prestigious pledgeship trophy. Yes, this all came from Harry Potter. That would make me Dumbledore, and all I have to say to that is, I'vepretended to be lesser wizards before.

Points were attached to the circumstances of the capture, to make the competition more interesting. Fifty points were given for each individual capture, but bonus points were available; these points were earned by the items or setting of the hostage picture the house took. Here's a quick menu:

In the Union food court - 25 points

On a moped - 25 points

Kissed by sorority girls - 25 points

In a shopping cart - 50 points

In Barnes and Noble - 50 points

At Mount Sequoyah - 50 points

Buying the office ice cream - 75 points

Riding go carts - 75 points

With a live horse - 100 points

You can see the logic behind some of these. I love Barnes and Noble. Most guys like kisses. All the officers love ice cream. The horse was sort of a "what the hay" thing - I didn't think it would actually be done. Little did I know.

These could also be combined. If the officer was eating ice cream at Barnes and Noble astride a live horse, that's 225 points, plus the fifty for the initial capture. That being said, let's score some of these photos, you and I.

This is Jessie Green; he was the first to be captured. Since all the doors were locked, the House of Duke broke through a window screen in his basement, came up the stairs and pulled him out of the top bunk he sleeps in every night like he's a five year old. Kudos for the special operations night vision, but that's all. 50 points.

Jessie had a rough night Tuesday. House of Wagner. 50 points. No extra for caressing.

Our president Lowell, captured by the House of Miller on Thursday. Lowell's original plan was to lock his doors every day at noon and not come out for any reason until the next morning. He even made a grocery run before the game started. This plan fell through, though, when two complete houses came to his house on Wednesday night demanding his blood in some sort of spiritual communion exercise. This spooked him enough to attempt to switch hide outs, at which point he was captured. Ice cream, shopping cart, and girls make this worth 200 points.

The House of Miller's capture of me. They followed me from the library, waited for an hour outside the Kappa house (because the Kappa's refused to let them in), and then ran me down like a loose puppy trying to make it to freedom in the middle of the road. Marks for moped and girls; 100 points.

Also note David Norris, who is wearing a Pankration shirt. He's been a major force in the promotion of my holiday, and tells me there are 200 people in a Facebook group committed to a Pankration celebration. He even made flyers.

Miller's capture of both Eric Barnes and Andy Brown. Miller was a busy house on Thursday, capturing in all six officers. These captures came off tips from the paterfamilias of their house, Ryan Miller himself. That's like Godric Gryffindor catching the Golden Snitch. Okay, maybe more like Helga Hufflepuff. Two officers, two mopeds, ice cream for all: 300 points.

The House of Cooper captured me on Wednesday. They waited outside my Classical Literature class, and chased me literally halfway across campus before I collapsed like an asthmatic. They duct taped my arms from the wrist to the elbow, and my legs from the ankles to the knees. They put me in a truck with a bag over my head. They tickled me.

I tried to resist at every possible moment. Escape wasn't really an option, because I moved like a pogo stick, but every time the cab door opened, I managed to fall out onto the pavement. I wouldn't stand, either - I'd make them put my dead weight back into the truck.

Sorority girls, moped, shopping cart, AND live horses: 250 points. They would have gotten 75 more with ice cream, but one of the pledges put the ice cream sandwich in my hands before they took the picture. That's a mistake. Before they could get the camera turned on, I ate the entire sandwich with the wrapper still on. You can't see it, but my face is covered in chocolate.

I like to think of all this as training for when my cover as a human is eventually blown. I'LL TELL YOU NOTHING!

These Pancakes Have No Regard For the Law

Last night my fraternity, Beta Upsilon Chi (BYX, bucks) threw it's fifth annual Uncle BYX pancake dinner. The event is a fundraiser for our philanthropy, Life Source, which is a food bank and resource center for the impoverished section of Fayetteville. There were over six hundred people, and we ran out of pancakes.

With eighty pledges, we didn't have enough jobs for everyone; when I pledged, each one of us had to serve pancakes, then stay afterwards till one in the morning cleaning up. Last night, they finished all the work by 11:30. We divided the group in half, where half served pancakes, while the other half was on 'dance duty.' Pledges on dance duty had to be dancing with a girl at all times. They were more resistant to this than I expected.

There were other jobs: ticket taker, t-shirt table, coffee captain, teddy bear peddler (I'm not sure where the bears came from, but dog gone it, we had a pledge selling them). All the cooks were members; that job is almost a Tom Sawyer thing. We tell all the pledges they're not allowed to cook until they're members, then when they become members, all they want to do is make pancakes. On the upside, if you're a cook, fraternal tradition holds that on the night of Uncle BYX only, you can give pledges any nickname you wish, and they have to respond. Four years after my pledgeship, Dirty Mike and the Grizz still go by the nicknames that they were given by then senior Blake Area.

The most coveted jobs, though, were the pancake costumes. We made two pancake costumes to promote Uncle BYX; pledges wore these throughout the week in the busiest intersections on campus. I considered it a blunt force type of marketing - a pancake rapidly approaches you, yelling about philanthropy, and grabs you by the collar. That's not a fictional situation. We sold several tickets this way.

Last night, we put two pledges in those costumes and posted them on Dickson Street, which ran in front of our venue. The two couldn't have been more happy with their assignment, and I left them dancing the the song of car horns. An hour later, I got a call from a friend who said policemen were outside Uncle BYX talking to pancakes. Were those my pancakes?

From the policemen, I gathered this: the pancakes had been running one side of the street to the other, like Frogger, dodging cars. Also, at one point, the pancakes got into the bed of someone's truck and drove down and up Dickson Street promoting our event. We promised they would stick to our side of the curb, and the police left the pancakes in peace.

The item my mind keeps returning to is the tip the police receieved. They said they got a call about the activities of the pancakes, and responded. But who would make that call?

911: 911, what's your emergency?

Caller: P-p-pan-pancakes! There are pancakes in the road!

911: Please, slow down. Tell me what's happening.

Caller: There are two pancakes who are terrorizing Dickson Street. It's like Road Warrior.

911: You say pancakes?

Caller: That's right. Rogue pancakes. They're showing a complete disregard for the law.

911: Can you tell me where you are on Dickson?

Caller: I-I - no, I can't. I think they can hear me.

911: Excuse me?

Caller: They're looking at me. Oh, no. God no.

911: Stay calm, we're sending help.

Caller: No - Please no! THIS WAS FORETOLD! THIS IS HOW IT ENDS!

That's probably how it sounded.

The Price of Pledgeship

As Pledge Commander, I've had to make sacrifices. I've stopped going to many classes. I don't do my homework. And many nights, I don't sleep in my bed. I've given up any hope of a normal life or a face that girls might find attractive in order to watch all thirty episodes of the canceled television show Jericho with my pledges.

However, I have found that being Pledge Commander has a different price - my dignity. Not that I had dignity before, but I feel like when other people see me, they feel my dignity slipping away, and I don't have time to stop them and say, "I lost my dignity long ago. It's too late for me - save yourself," so somedays I feel it just as strongly as the first day it left, that time Lewis Chase ratted me out to Stephanie Broderick for writing that anonymous love note in second grade.

Every time I go to Wal-Mart, I relive that day when Lewis Chase told me that Stephanie would much rather be with him than with me (right before she left town; to this day I still can't find her on Facebook. Do you know how many Stephanie Broderick's there are in the continental U.S. alone? At least ten, because you can only view ten at a time, and I wasn't about to page through the whole list). For pledgeship, I've had to buy the oddest things. 200 squirt guns. Fifty pounds of flour. Fifty dollars worth of panty hose. A hacksaw and several gallons of industrial strength lime. Okay, I made that third one up.

Saturday, in the check out line with seven bottles of spray paint, ten rolls of masking tape, and seventy Hanes V-necks, Arkansas radio personality Rick Schaeffer (see picture: the original Hotness) pulled in behind me. He gave me the stink voice, which is the FM equivalent of the stink eye. In return, I told him not to sound so smug, with your fifty pounds of animal feed. What are you doing, running a cock fight?

I may have not said that, but it still feels terrible to have a minor local celebrity infer that you're losing your dignity.

Best Coke Date Ever

On Thursday, we had scheduled a coke date between our pledge class and the pledge class of Delta Delta Delta. We were supposed to learn how to line dance - a BYX alum named Cy Martin (who may be a fourth year senior - all I know is that he was the only Beta class member attending chapter for two years straight) was lined up to not only teach the dances, but to call them off, too. I'm still not sure what that looks like, but in my mind I see an auctioneer.

As the pledges and I walked towards the back door of the Tri Delt house, sirens began to sound. I never knew we had sirens in Fayetteville. The sounds they produced makes me think they were military surplus from the Cold War. We had no idea what was going on, so we go inside the Tri Delt house and shut the door. In my mind, I truly believed we had seconds to live, and I had to find the love of my life right now.

That wasn't true. It was actually a tornado warning. For a few seconds I debated making my pledges line dance anyway, but considering the ongoing natural disaster, I decided that would labeled hazing. Instead, we forced all my pledges, all Tri Delt pledges, and all Tri Delts in the house at the time into the basement.

The Tri Delt basement is less a series of rooms than it is just a really curvy hallway. There were rooms down there, but we weren't allowed in. In fact, we weren't even allowed to look inside. My pledges, dressed like cowboys, stood shoulder to should lining the walls like human survivors in the Terminator movies. Girls clumped together in corners, ignoring anyone who wasn't a sister. Driven by the idea that we were the last of the human race, and we needed to be fruitful, I improvised: I told all my pledges that by midnight that night, they had to email me a 500 word biography of one Tri Delt. That started conversation.

We after about an hour and a half, when there was no tornado, but when the rain was still falling heavily. By midnight, I had received about fifteen emails - no one really took me seriously. No email was over a hundred words, either, but there were some great ones, including this:

"Tonight I met a girl named Alex Tedford. Now Alex is actually from my hometown which is the city of Little Rock. Surprisingly I don't believe that we had been formally introduced before tonight. She is a very nice girl that I would like to get to know better but here's the deal she has a boyfriend. Now I have actually seen this boyfriend of hers. He is not what you would call clean cut. He is actually the lead singer of a heavy metal band. I guess I have some competition. She is blonde and very pretty her boyfriend is a lucky guy."

To that pledge, I say, if there's not a ring on the finger, fair game.

Operation A Capella Complete

Two weeks ago, I, acting as my fraternity's Pledge Commander, initiated the Nakatomi Protocol and began Operation A CAPELLA (Alpha Call All Potentials Every Last Lonely Aardvark). Last night, it was completed as a success.

This is the realization of a dream, a dream that started six months ago and was briefly suspended back in May when I woke up to go to the bathroom. However, the dream came true last night as our fraternity gave bids to 84 pledges.

84! What the frak, how are we going to handle 84 pledges?

I was elected Pledge Trainer last November, but I quickly changed the title to Pledge Commander and instigated a paramilitary coup, and by paramilitary I mean inside myself, as I overthrew the civic Pledge Trainer and replaced him with a crueler, more dashing, and more militarized Pledge Commander. I also promoted my assistants to Pledge Lieutenants. Pledges are now known as PFCs (Pledge First Class).

Today we begin a four month pledgeship. I call it Operation MARZIPAN (Mostly All Robot Zebras Iota Pledge Action Now!). I would be still working on the acronym, but I got tired.