There is a fortune, which was gleefully pulled from a cookie, taped to the top of my editor’s computer.
“The night life is for you,” it reads.
I’m not sure how long it’s been there or why it’s still there, but I do know that every time I steal his giant, comfortable, editor’s chair, I look up and think, “Well, shoot. I’ve never had a fortune like that.”
Last weekend was the first weekend I’ve spent on campus without a visitor. For the first time, I didn't have anyone to distract me from the inevitable conclusion that once it’s dark outside, I’m not very interesting.
However, my incredibly social friends made it their personal mission to keep me from that conclusion. They go out a lot - parties, clubs or even just cramming in someone’s dorm room to watch a movie. It was their goal to pry me from my desk chair and make me get up and move.
Well, they succeeded.
For the first time since I’ve lived on campus, I went dancing.
Actually, that was the first time in my life that I’ve gone dancing. I had a great time and don’t doubt that I’ll do it again, but it was definitely a rare form of culture shock.
While all my cronies seemed to spend at least an hour getting ready, I was a last-minute addition to the group. I had just enough time to borrow a pair of shoes and change my shirt - no lipstick (as if I own makeup anyway), no time to psych myself up and not even time to brush my hair.
Not that any of that matters, apparently - I quickly found what an undertaking dancing at a club is. Hundreds of scantily clad college-aged women wearing shades of red, black and silver vaguely moved their arms around to a beat they couldn’t find while hundreds of half-drunken guys stared.
Quite a sight, huh?
Regardless, I tried to find my nonexistent sense of rhythm and look like I’d done this before. Maybe it worked too well, because before long the guys got friendly.
The guys who were drunk were smelly and stumbling, but the guys who were sober were even more hilarious. I couldn’t believe how much like Saturday Night Live’s Roxbury guys they could be.
Sometimes, a lady just has to pass up a dance.
It wasn’t until after I had fully digested my initial observations of the club that things really started to get adventurous.
We broke the cardinal rule of going out by losing our friend. We spent the last few hours of the night trying to figure out where she could have disappeared to and actually had her paged by the DJ, like any good mother would do for her missing 3-year-old. We later found her in her pajamas in her dorm room.
Shortly after she disappeared, someone dumped a glass of beer on my head. Considering I’ve never drank, it was slightly alarming - a little like being christened in some strange, bizarre, very irreligious way.
I consider it to be a learning experience.
Everyone has to grow up in some way, and mine just happened to be by losing my friends, getting splashed with alcohol and dancing among people who probably didn’t remember it the next day. The actual dancing part was a great time, and I’d highly recommend it.
But, if you look for me next weekend, I’ll probably be ordering in Chinese, waiting for the fortune that tells me what to do next.
Jamie Gumbrecht, State News news general assignment reporter, can be reached at gumbrec1@msu.edu.
