Living & Arts

Saving your Saturday night

In print | February 26, 2009

Welcome to the magical mystery tour of the (above) average Saturday night at Swarthmore, when epic plans are made and never carried out, where hopes are built up and then torn to shreds, but when we always manage to have decent time in the end. This will be a chronological survey of where any given Saturday night might take you, a timeline, if you will, of the important events and turning points in the quintessential party night of the week.

Why, you may ask, would you want to read such inconsequential garbage? Because decisions are hard to make. There are occasionally those fateful nights when more than one event is going on at once, and priorities are important in such cases, so I will outline this survey for you as an example of all the options available; please make your oh-so-significant social choices accordingly. Disclaimer: under no circumstances should you take anything I say hereafter (or ever, for that matter) seriously. If you do not find imaginary substance abuse funny, then read no further.

First, we will start in the place where all good Saturday nights start: the dorm room. Dorm rooms are ideal spaces for assembling your troops in preparation for a descent into campus, and for preliminary planning, gossiping and inebriating. Any epic Saturday night requires pre-gaming, starting anywhere between 6 and 11 p.m. depending on exactly how epic you want your night to be (or how early you want it to end). The danger of an early start is a lack of endurance; if you’re already hung-over by 10 o’clock, that is never a good sign. A slow, even drinking pace is key if you want to sustain your buzz happily from early evening until early morning. Helpful tools can be drink scavenger hunts, in which you set goals of how many drinks you consume at each party; or drink minimums for you and your friends, which can help you overcome such adversities as juice-overload when the drinks are too weak.

Upon preparing ourselves with our booze-jackets (because let’s face it, it’s too cold out for being sober this time of year), we will now start with our closest bases and move to a typical Olde Club party, not to be confused with the typical Olde Club concert, which I have previously discussed. Olde Club parties are made good or bad depending on two variables: music and alcohol. An occasional third variable can be the decorations, but this only applies if those decorations include faux-fur wall hangings (it has happened). My advice is to stop by Olde Club, see where it falls on the good-bad scale, decide accordingly whether to stay or not, but in either case to move along after an hour or so at most. Unless your friends are hosting the party, in which case you should arrive in full costume according to the party theme, get trashed, dance ridiculously and scare away anyone you don’t know. You should probably also take over the music and play a song that everyone but you hates at some point.

Next stop is Delta Upsilon fraternity because, really, it’s 10 feet away. DU is an excellent place to procure alcoholic beverages, particularly if you either are friends with the frat boys or happen to be an attractive girl. All gender advantages in getting drinks aside, the DU boys are on average quite the upstanding gentlemen, contrary to popular belief. They keep their basement marginally cleaner than that of Olde Club, and they have excellent restroom facilities, aside from the fact that there is rarely any toilet paper. They are also quite welcoming to anyone who wishes to join their apparently never-ending Beirut tournaments, if you find throwing ping pong balls at Solo cups to be at all enjoyable. (Clearly, I do not).

We shall briefly skim over Phi Psi and Paces for brevity’s sake. Now that we have exhausted our on-campus resources, it is time for the most epic of journeys: the trek to the Barn. This trek should generally be saved for last because the parties reach maximum ridiculousness late at night, and you definitely don’t want to make the trip twice. Barn Parties, when done properly, are psychedelic whirlwinds of good DJing, dizzying dancing and high levels of intoxication. You should probably get high in some way while you’re there. You should also probably step outside to have a deep philosophical discussion over a cigarette at some point, even if you don’t smoke. Most of all, you should definitely exercise no form of restraint in your dance moves whatsoever, even if you’re sober. I’m talking serious arm-flailing–just go for it. This is the last stop on our tour, so go all out and enjoy yourself. If it’s a basement party, also enjoy the asbestos you’re probably inhaling.

When and if you decide to head home, do so with a buddy; if it’s warm out, bushes in the middle of campus can look like really attractive sleeping places when you’re walking back from the Barn alone and drunk. Fill your water bottle, take a good chug or two from it, most certainly do not remember to set an alarm, and collapse into bed. You’ve survived your epic Saturday night at Swarthmore. I only wish I could guarantee that even half of our Saturday nights were like this.

Emily is a sophomore. You can reach her at ecrawfo1@swarthmore.edu.