Lies, Damned Lies and Freshmen Orientation

College is coming back into session. I know this because Boston is a college town, and The American Jerk Home Office is located across the street from a bunch of cheapo triple-decker apartment houses. Which sounds like a pain in the ass, but believe me: it’s a welcome change from actually living in one.

Due to my proximity to cheap housing, every year on the weekend before classes start I’m subjected to a two-day show of children, who are maybe 36 hours out from quietly crying over the impending separation from their high school boyfriends in their childhood twin bed, staggering around and grimacing over the bold and robust flavor of Busch, for Christ’s sake, and loudly talking about weighty, adult topics like the bold and robust flavor of Busch and their undying love for their high school boyfriends.

Which I can live with, because let’s face it: everybody in earshot knows full well that the loud girl will find herself slobbing a knob under a trophy shelf full of empty beer cans by September 1st, including the loud girl. And I can even deal with the noise, because I was in college once and I know full well that upperclassmen with off-campus housing aren’t inviting freshman girls over because they like hearing wild stories about Mock U.N. or Debate Camp. Besides, mouthy, shitfaced teenagers are just a part of doing business when you live in a college town, right along with thumping hip-hop bass from white kids in Dodge Neons and unfounded date rape allegations.

What I find I can’t live with are the non-stop lines of unmitigated bullshit about college life that the upperclassmen who were throwing the party spun at these girls for hours on end. Every time I went out on my front step for a cigarette I was subjected to lies, innuendo and urban legends about college that I heard when I was a college freshman… nineteen years ago. And I understand that these nuggets of false wisdom exist simultaneously to impress girls too naive to be impressed by education and sophistication, and to hide the fact that you have neither of those qualities, but Jesus Christ, would it kill you to come up with some new lies?

So as a public service to freshman girls, I’d like to take this opportunity to debunk all the crap you’ve been told in the past forty-eight hours. Not because I care, because frankly, you’re as irritating as jock itch, but because I don’t want to see any more of you crying on my curb unless I’ve caused it.

1. Beer Pong was not invented at your school by [insert celebrity name here]. A simple Googling will tell you that [insert celebrity name here] did not attend your school, which is probably why he or she is so successful.
2. Beer Pong, and in fact all drinking games, are all a variation on the original drinking game: Get You So Drunk You’ll Suck My Dick And Forget It Was Mine. Therefore, if you find yourself playing one of these games with all guys, consider finding new friends. Particularly if you’re a guy.
3. Jagermeister is not illegal in this state, nor does it cause hallucinations. You are being told this to encourage you to drink and chase that hallucination, and to believe tomorrow morning that you hallucinated your memories of being violated.
4. If a guy tells you he is a college radio disc jockey, it does not mean that he is a sophisticated scholar of good music. It means that he has a pulse.
5. A college guy does not go to the trouble of building an ice luge because he wants to make sure you have a good time at the party. He builds it because he doesn’t know anyone who will sell him Ketamine.
6. Your positions on politics are being listened to so he can learn your positions on his futon.
7. Funnelling beers does not prove to him that you are college material, it proves whether or not you can open and relax your throat.
8. You are not the most interesting person he has ever met.
9. You are not the most interesting person at the party.
10. You are not interesting.

[tags]college life, freshman orientation, date rape, dark humor, satire[/tags]