College Parties

On Fri/Sat nights at USC, student groups would list their address on some obscure app which got replaced every year and charge people $5-$10 entry to their dirty backyards, featuring a couple pop up tables and a loud speaker and several plastic bottles of vodka and sprite and cheap boxed Franzia and solo cups and everything was fair game from about 10 to 2. 

the good parties were the ones where you weren’t alone. nobody really danced at these things. it was more a lets-get-really-drunk-and-talk-and-meet-people-and-maybe-if-you’re-hot-enough-and-i’m-drunk-enough-we-can-make out-athon. 

as a freshman, i lived on a floor of open doors in a dorm full of academically elite heavy drinkers. Every Friday afternoon, the question loomed in the 40 Person Group Chat: whats the move tn. where are we going. whats the move. any moves. etc. 

there was always a move. every night had its casualties. dead at the pregame. throwing up in the bathroom all night. kids were carried home just-married style if that’s what it took. i remember waking up one morning at 5 am sitting on the steps outside staring down at a pool of my own vomit. no one had a perfect record. you were playfully mocked for that one time you went overboard and someone had to carry you and if you were a good guy you paid it forward by carrying the next guy to get so gone. I was 17.