The Past Three Months Have Been a Lie

The University of Central Arkansas just founded a BYX chapter in late January. To survive the first couple of years, a new chapter needs a strong group founding fathers. These guys need to be consistent for maybe three years while inconsistency in recruiting get worked out. It's not really until the third or fourth pledge class that real growth and commitment can be seen from the group as a whole. Anyway, what I'm saying is UCA has what it takes to make it. They have this strong group of committed founding fathers. Some of them have changed their life schedules - will now attend graduate school at UCA - in order to facilitate and grow the Alpha Gamma chapter.

Last night the UCA BYX chapter had it's first big campus event, Starbyx. It was an outdoor concert, with couches and acoustic music and girls - GIRLS! I had seen pictures, but in real life they're more beautiful than I'd imagined.

Three of us from Arkansas went down. Difani, Burton and I had all served on the last executive officer core together; Burton had been tapped by the Alpha Gamma chapter to play in a line up of three bands.

Burton is the one holding the chips. That's what he was paid in. You can find his music here. If you do visit his MySpace and see his album cover, I'll tell you a secret. The t-shirt he's wearing - he bought it off a homeless person. It looks like it was drawn on with a Sharpie marker, which is most likely true. He paid twenty dollars for it.

This is a continuing relationship between our chapter and UCA. In late January, we took six guys down to UCA to help lead the initiation ceremony for the founding fathers. It's secret ceremony, so I can't talk about it, but I created an ambigram that reveals the truth. You have to find it first (buried in the basement of Old Main).

The night before initiation that January, Difani and I drove down alone. He wanted to hang out with the fathers, some of whom he knew from high school, and I had a blind date, set up by my sister. This girl played volleyball for UCA - that was what sealed the deal. My dad said, "Think of my grandchildren!" He wants athletes.

I took this girl to Stoby's, a sandwich/burger shop with great cheese dip and pie. We went there specifically for the appertisers and desserts - I'm not even sure we ate an entree. We had good conversation, and there was never any lulls or awkward moments, but the best part - the part that made the whole date worth it - came at the end of the meal. Our waitress brought us a piece of pie and said, "We all voted you cutest couple of the night, so you get a free piece of pie." At this point I wasn't head over heels for the girl, but the Cutest Couple award was the best thing to happen to me so far into 2010. The next day, of course, I told that story to any of the UCA initiates who would listen. Difani and his friends just said, "That's awesome, man."

Driving back from Conway last night, Difani brought that up. He asked me if I remembered my date, then made me retell the story to Burton. Of course I got excited again thinking about my reward, and played the story up, ending with the punchline, "Cutest Couple of the Night!" At this point Difani started laughing uncontrollably. He said he had something to confess. I thought he had seen her, or someone I knew was dating her. Those things mattered not to me.

He said that that night, I had been facing away from the door, and he and four or five of the UCA founding fathers had walked into Stoby's. They sat directly behind me and watched the whole date. I never turned around. Near the end, they grabbed their waitress and told her to serve us a piece of pie on them, to say whatever she wanted but to give us the pie for free.

He said they were going to tell me the next day, but I was so estatic about the free piece of pie that they couldn't burst my bubble. They had a meeting later, all of them, and decided to never tell anyone.

I sat in silence. Difani asked me to say something, and I said I was furious. He asked if it was because I was the joke, and I said no - I honestly believed I had won Cutest Couple of the night. The fact that it was a fake award - that I really wasn't a part of the cutest couple - devestated me. Even now I cannot get over it; I realize Stoby's doesn't give out a weekly Cutest Couple Award, but I really thought that our waitress thought my date and I looked good together. I mean, I tipped her really well.

However, Difani suggested I use this story to reopen communications with the blind date. I think she has a right to know.

Another Blind Function Date

On Saturday, pledge Matt Bakke and I went to Tulsa University, to the Chi Omega Winter Formal. This made four formals in a week for me. I have never been so popular as I am now as a senior. I postulate this is because I hang out with freshman every day. They think I'm really cool.

I hung out with all levels of college guy that night. I knew no one, besides Matt, and so in order to make friends I would tell every guy that I liked a part of their clothing: their shoes, their vest, their suit. This usually sparked conversation. One guy in an beautiful blue suit with white stripes, Landon, had the suit made for his medical school interviews. Another, Alex, was wearing a vest I had just bought at Target. I made Alex and his roommate Sam honorary BYX, and together with Matt we took a fraternity photo.

My date was blind; she was Matt's girlfriend's big sorority sister. The last blind function date I had was for BYX Roller Disco. Another pledge lined that girl up for me. I abandoned her after the first few songs. It's hard to skate with someone unless they're your girlfriend and you're both in the third grade.

There was a snowball at Roller Disco, where the girls ask the guys to skate with them and hold hands. After I realized what was happening, I skated to my date, who was sitting on a bench on the sidelines. "Let's skate together," I said. "Why?" she asked.

"Because you're my date."

"No I'm not."

And I looked more closely at her, and, the devil take it, she really wasn't my date. I had forgotten what my date looked like. So instead of owning up to this, I skated away backwards, giving a thumbs up. Later, I waited by my car until a girl approached me; I correctly assumed she was my date, and I acted exasperated, demanding to know why she left me.

I told this story to my TU blind date, as an ice breaker while we were slow dancing. At TU functions, there's always a slow dance, or so I deduced from the coolness by which my date handled it. Let me tell you, she took it like a champ when I suggested we slow dance alongside her engaged sorority sisters and those who never stopped grinding. That didn't stop the song from becoming uncomfortable after my third anecdote or so.

Tulsa functions are really more like wedding receptions. It started at 7:30, when all girls and their dates boarded two buses (Chi Omega is total about sixty girls, which is twenty less than the average pledge class of a sorority at Arkansas). We went to a country club thirty minutes away, where there was a coat check, buffet, tables with actual silver ware, and a dance floor the size of two Twister mats.

I knew when the DJ said, "We're going to keep the 80's going with this next one," that he was no DJ Derrick; like the function, he was more of a wedding DJ than a good one. I talked to him once, during a slow part, in order to request some songs. After two or three misses, he told me that this music wasn't really his scene. Now, I have this insatiable desire to know what his scene actually is. My guess: European discoteca.

My freshman year, a few older BYX created a dance routine to the song, "Miss New Booty" by Bubba Sparxxx. Recently, I've decided to bring it back, because I remember it really encouraged fraternal bonding. We used it at Kappa Kissmas. I had a vision that the song would come on at this Tulsa function, and I, the new guy who no one knew, would teach everyone the dance then I would be crowned homecoming king. I'm pretty sure this was a plot device in the 80's. After I realized the DJ wouldn't play this on his own, I requested it (see previous paragraph). This was the following conversation:

ME: Can you play "Miss New Booty"?

DJ: WHAT?

ME: CAN YOU PLAY "MISS NEW BOOTY"?

DJ: I DON'T KNOW THAT SONG.

ME: REALLY? I MEAN, YOU KNOW HOW IT GOES...I FOUND YOU, MISS NEW BOOTY GET IT TOGETHER AND BRING IT BACK TO ME...YOU KNOW...GET IT RIGHT GET IT RIGHT GET IT TIGHT FORGET IT. IT'S NOT WORTH THIS.

The sad thing is, I showed him the dance while I recited the lyrics.