Seeing as how Fraternity stories seems to be the rule of the week, I thought I might add at least one of the various sorted affairs of my collegiate years. There are too many places I could begin, but I think that I will indulge my fellow OTFers with The Story Of Rob.
Rob was Canadian. You see, part of being Canadian means that you are born with an inherent ability to consume massive amounts of alcohol, seemingly from birth. There are many theories as to why this is the case. The theory I hold to be true is that Canadians are born to consume massive amounts of alcohol in order to drink themselves through the physical effects of horrendous winters and the mental effects of the American inferiority complex. This I subscribe to, after many nights of arguing with my best mate, Rob. After all, when was the last time you went to a good Canadian restaurant to order some good Canadian food? With the exception of Canadian “bacon”, which is really just American “ham”, Michael J. Fox, and that woman that sings the bitchy songs, there are no real contributions by Canadians to the world. They feel badly about this. For this, they drink.
Here’s another tidbit about Rob…he was a VERY good hockey player in the junior leagues of Canada. So much so, that it got him a full-ride hockey scholarship to one of Detroit’s finest private high schools. This is the type of school you would see in bad Julia Roberts movies, replete with dorms and grand halls and doing its best to look like an Ivy League campus. Why is this important? Because in going to said high school, Rob was 5 hours from home and he became best mates in high school with the son of a very wealthy Detroit resident. I won’t give that famous Detroiter’s name but his name rhymed with Benske. Anyway, Benske’s Jr., as one might imagine, had lots of disposable income. Benske Jr. and Rob spent their high school years making themselves accomplished drinkers. The long and the short of it? Rob was well on his way to becoming a great drinker WAY before he got to college. This, it seems, is not a good thing. By the tender age of 18, Rob could drink his way through just about anything.
Rob and I didn’t hit it off right away. I was sort of a loner in our pledge class to begin with, as the guys in my dorm either dropped out of pledging, went another route, or were not extended bids. I saw Rob as this short, loud-mouthed, silly guy with a large head. He saw me as a tall, stocky, loud-mouthed, somewhat arrogant, opinionated Indiana hick. However, it wasn’t too long before we became the best of friends. We both were accomplished former athletes that had expected to always be at the top of the athletic food chain. Our stories were similar: divorce parents, gifted athletes at a young age, physical ability tapped out on the athletic field about high school, could have continued to live the dream of athletics at a small college, decided to give it up rather than continue the dream, ended up at a college with no athletic program but well regarded academically. We both secretly loathed the decision. We both loved the same things. We both shared the same frustrations. We loved arguing between each other, and others loved listening to us argue. We could argue both silly things and intellectual things. Certain substances, like alcohol and/or THC, made our arguments all the more heated, and apparently all the more enjoyable for others to take part in. We were both intensely competitive, to the point of drunken brawls that started with great vengeance and furious anger but ended up with us laughing hysterically. We had intense, marathon sessions of Monopoly or Risk in a smoke-filled room of the Fraternity. Some lasted 10-12 hours, with only short breaks for bodily functions or food. During one of these sessions, with both of us having a love of cooking, we concocted a recipe so tasty and delicious that is still known to this day by the residents of 1160 DuPont by its original name (and this is a name you might want to remember later on in the story as well). Carol’s Puss is a delectable treat of melted cream cheese, chunky salsa, and shredded cheddar cheese stirred together in a bowl. After the original batch of Carol’s Puss was created in a drunken haze, and it was regarded to how lovely it tasted on darn near anything, it became the stuff (literally) of legend. There is nothing like listening to an 18-year-old freshman coed stumble into the kitchen and order up her first batch of Puss. It still brings a sense of pride and accomplishment to my heart to this very day.
Carol was our cook. She was a large and sweaty 40ish woman that apparently used onions for deodorant and garlic water for douche. Carol was a lifelong townie, about 100 lbs overweight, and still regarded herself as attractive as evidenced by her tube top “bras” that were loosely covered by a holey and faded “tank top”. Her holey and faded “sweat shorts” (literally and figuratively) had a penchant for defying the fight or flight reaction and creeped dangerously towards her nether-regions, exposing the cottage cheese to its full and revolting glory. The fabric was bunched up there somewhere, exactly where should never be known. Her booblage was about 3 times as long as it was tall, and the “bra” seemed to always collect a healthy amount of sweat regardless of her activity level. She wasn’t a good cook. Our semesters were broken up into 3 month quarters, and every quarter brought a new boyfriend for Carol. 1 semester brought Sasquatch, a burly and hairy late-20s mountain of a man that only communicated in grunts and nods. The next quarter, Sasquatch was gone, apparently the victim of a self-inflicted shotgun wound. With a woman like Carol at your side, it was hard to believe a man half her age would have such ultimate thoughts run through his head. Actually, it’s very easy to believe that, but those are the kinds of lies that are told out of respect for the dead. The next semester brought The Rick. Nobody remembers where the “The” came from, but he was always “The Rick”. The Rick showed up in Carol’s life about 1.3 days after Sasquatch was laid in the ground. The Rick was a nice fellow, the kind of guy you’d expect to meet, and the type of guy you’d actually enjoy meeting, in a dive bar in a shady corner of a dive town. 40-something, laborer, about half the size of Carol, friendly, probably a conviction or two somewhere in his past but currently just trying to get by on doing the right thing. The Rick would be Carol’s demise, but on to that later.
Rob was always hard-up for female attention. This is a mystery that confounds me to this day. Rob is a good-looking fellow, funny, articulate, caring…seemingly all the things that a woman would desire. However, I think that he’s lacking the confidence factor that women find so endearing. I found that it’s a much more successful ploy to get women to pay attention to you if you’re a prick than if you’re a nice guy, but that is the enigma wrapped in a riddle that is the female psyche. Anyway, Rob had a long-time girlfriend that dumped him shortly before college, and I think damaged his confidence to very low levels. I mentioned Rob’s drinking before. Rob could drink himself through damn near anything. He became a legend in the eyes of the upper-classmen by bonging 2 PITCHERS of beer back-to-back as a freshman. He held it down for 15 minutes, and I was the only one that witnessed him puke another 15 minutes after that. I never told anyone. A combination of mass consumption of alcohol, little to no women, a secret “slimming factor” that beer had on Rob, and the complete and utter disregard for decision making once a certain blood-alcohol level was reached is a recipe for disaster for Rob. One particular night, Rob and I finished our singing set (we both sang decently and had a group of “fans”) at our local hangout…a place frequented by all types. College kids, elderly drunks, and various other riff-raff you’d find in a tough neighborhood in a tough, down-on-its-luck, Midwest industrial town. A particular girl, actually our age, took an interest in Rob. “Alright!” I think to myself as I see the girl, who’s not all that unattractive, leave with Rob. I leave the bar shortly after knowing that my buddy is finally doing what single college-aged guys are supposed to be doing. Or so I thought.
I visited the bathroom the next morning to see Rob brushing his teeth…actually, in hindsight I believe he was brushing his tongue…with the fervor of a wounded badger trying to bite its way out of a trap. This exchange took place:
Kookie: “Dude, how’d it go last night?” Rob (between frantic brushing): “Fine. I don’t really want to talk about it” Kookie: “Whaddya mean? Did you score or not? What’s up? Why are you brushing so hard?” Rob: “WILL YOU SHUT THE F UP ABOUT IT? F! DUDE JUST SHUT THE F UP, OK?”
About a month later the details came out, after much coaxing. Apparently, this girl had just been with child about 3-4 months (the exact details have been lost to history) and this night was her first night on the town. Rob, to his delight, finally is getting the desire of every colleged aged guy. He goes about his business, to the point of some mammary playtime. Well, apparently, the girl was still TOO close to the birth of child, and when he went for some playtime there was still some mommy-juice in the tank, if you catch my drift. After a brief exchange that went something like this, “Ahhh! What the f is that?” “Ummm….I just had a kid a few months ago. Thought that was over with. Sorry.” “Ohh…Ok” my man Rob thought it OK to go ahead and empty not only one, but BOTH tanks. It apparently made sense at the time. It still makes me LOL to remember this drunken line a few months later, “Dude, it’s sweet and those things can SQUIRT!”
I tell this story to demonstrate the decision making prowess of Milk Man, as he became affectionately known. We now fast-forward to a VFW Hall in the dilapidated industrial city of my college years. It must be known that Carol spends a LOT of time in the VFW Hall. So much so, that she arranged this roast, since alcohol is no longer allowed within the confines of the Fraternity. She also arranged the “stripper” for the senior roast (this was the class ahead of me), which is a crack-addicted, rail thin, late 30s woman that proceeds to go WAY too far and rip guys penises out to try to tie them in knots. She has a voice about 4 octaves below gravelly. If “bouldery” could be a word used to describe a voice, then this was it. She capped off the night of penis tying with a tearful, drunken, dedication to our outgoing senior class that contained gems like this, “HAY!!!! YOU GUZYSS!!! I KNOW DAT I MIGHT JUST BE A STRIPPER, but WAY TO GO! WAY TO GO! SZSEROUIUSLY, You GUYSZS are HEADING TO BIIGGGG THINGSZSS!” At this point, she fell off the table she was standing on, catching her G-string on a chair, snapping it right off. I don’t know if elephantitis of the labia is an actual medical condition, but if it is, then these things needed checking out. So, she says as she’s all sprawled out, meat curtains in full view, “Welp! Gueszszs I din’t need dose! HEHHEHEHEHEH!!!!”
Anyway, through the commotion, I notice that there is no Milk Man to be found anywhere. It should also be noted that between the time of helping plan senior roast at the VFW and the actual roast occurring, Carol was fired. The Rick, after being heart-broken by Carol, told us of the embezzling of food she was doing at our expense. Apparently, she was ordering too much food and loading up a good portion of it when we weren’t looking, and reselling it at the trailer park (true story). However, she did want to be a part of the VFW experience, so she showed up…no hard feelings. So, anyway, I go looking for Milk Man…thinking he might be passed out somewhere. I find a secret VFW hallway that leads to a secret VFW room, and what I found still haunts me to my core to this day. I see none other than Carol and Milk Man, in a full out grind make-out session. He was shirtless, somehow she had managed to get his letters off of him and on to her. She was wearing OUR fraternity shirt, the letters nearly bursting off the shirt, and he had his tounge deep within her huge mouth. I let out a shriek. Carol was noticeably NOT embarrassed. Rob suddenly realized the depths of his depravity and let out his own shriek. He ran from the VFW, fly still undone, still shirtless, into his truck not to be seen for 2-3 days (seriously). Even though it was a clear violation of Fraternity etiquette, we didn’t demand our letter shirt back from Carol. It had been desecrated enough. Rob, to this very day, still denies everything even though there is more than one witness.
The moral of the story? Trailer trash, uninhibited horny Canadians, and mass quantities of alcohol don’t mix.
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