I Went Too Hard During Homecoming Weekend And I Can Never Go Back, Part 1

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By the grace of God, I’m still on an email thread comprised of a who’s who of power players from college. These are the guys that are too busy keeping up the ruse that they managed to pull on their very respectable employers to partake in a group text, but still keep up with old friends through email to keep from completely losing touch. That’s what reminded me of the disaster weekend last fall.

When I saw the subject line “Homecoming Weekend” appear in my inbox, I nearly broke out in a sweat. I had managed to block out the sin fiesta that was homecoming 2014, or as we now call it, “homecumming.” I’m shocked they even included me on the thread. I’m fairly certain it was just to fuck with me. Mission accomplished.

Last October, eight wolves dressed in business casual decided to come out of retirement to wreak havoc upon their college town. Sure, it’d been done before, but this time all the necessary ingredients for an unprecedented shit show were present. Two of the guys were young fathers that hadn’t seen a night away from the family in months, one guy was divorced after just 11 months of marriage (I called it by the way), and everyone else was just your run-of-the-mill over-confident 26-year-old.

My first mistake was my arrival time. Despite my better judgment, I took the whole day off Friday. I know it’s a rookie move, but the thought of hitting Austin traffic on my way into town was enough to steer me into a terrible decision. Now, a person with impulse control would have passed on the offer to meet their buddy, fresh off a divorce, in town just after lunch time. That’s not my style, though. Plus, what kind of asshole says no to a guy that just had his wheels shot off by some bitch that had a change of heart? Not this kind of asshole.

With the others not showing their faces in town until late afternoon, we did what any males nearing the end of their prime would do: we drank heavily and creeped. Thank God for Adderall.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but college bars tend to be cheap. Cheap beers lead to cheap car bombs. Cheap car bombs lead to brownouts. Brownouts lead to blackouts. Second mistake: Blacking out before dinner.

As with any blackout situation, the timeline is riddled with holes. Everything from this point forward comes from more responsible parties, or from flashbacks that hit me in the days after. You know, like when you hear some Pitbull song on your way into work Monday morning and you suddenly remember being forcibly removed from an 18 and up club that you had no business being in? One of those.

Hibachi Dinner

I don’t know what it is about Japanese steak houses that brings out the worst in people, but Teriyaki Steak and obnoxious behavior just seem to be running mates. The rest of the gang showed up around 7, and they had some serious catching up to do. When you’re 25 and in your college town with something to prove, playing catch-up is like playing with fire.

We requested all the hits: Sake bombs, fried rice, steak, chicken, shrimp. We didn’t need menus. Order the classics, and let the good times roll. When our chef walked up with his cart full of magic, we gave him one of the more unnecessary ovations in hibachi history. His name was Don, allegedly. Whatever. We chanted that shit. He probably hated us, but he acted like he was into it. Every time he flipped an egg, we reacted with the enthusiasm of the white dudes riding the bench at UNC. “Cook that shit!”, we chanted as he made the onion volcano burn with the heat of a thousand fires. They politely asked us to leave.

Complete trash. I remember none of it.

Bars

The only rational decision I made that entire weekend was swinging by the hotel after dinner to check in and drop my shit off, something I naturally neglected to do during the prior 7 hours. No shower. I just threw on one of the three monogrammed button downs (on the wrist, not the pocket) I brought with me in an effort to look like a big swinging dick and charged the bar. Cheese dick-ish, I know, but at least I acknowledge it. I threw a 10mg in my mouth and hopped in an Uber with Joe, the divorced dude.

Bar one was respectable. We weren’t the only postgrads trying to put out the vibe, so we fit in pretty well. When you go back for a weekend, you have to be prepared to shake hands and give status updates to people you don’t care about. It’s part of the deal. We lucked out and got most of that out of the way. I went into the weekend with a canned response for anyone wondering where I’m at in life. After the impromptu meet and greet, things escalated.

Despite our best efforts to stay far away from our fraternal roots, we ended up rubbing shoulders with some active members of our esteemed organization. “Here we go,” I thought (probably) as we were suddenly surrounded with 21-year-olds bragging about how awesome the chapter is now, and not so subtly asking for internships and jobs. But if you want to properly creep on college girls, you have to have an in. They were our in.

I don’t remember who it was, but someone just came out and asked about the female situation. Were we the creepy old fucks trying to take their women? Yes, we were. But that’s the natural way of things. These girls were eating it up, though. That much I do remember. “Oh, you live in Houston? I’m from there! What part of town?” It was like they’d never met a young adult before. Maybe they were just humoring us. I didn’t care. I could’ve bought every girl at that bar a shot and still spent less than I would going out back home. And I did.

After that, we made the executive decision to take it back to the hotel. No girls. Just dudes. That would change.

The Wakeup

As I mentioned, I roomed with the divorced dude. Divorced dudes will do anything to get back in the game, and apparently, my weekend roomie had put in some work without any of us noticing.

While I did my standard fully clothed pass out, Joe threw a Hail Mary. He had somehow obtained a number from one of the girls we were introduced to at the bar, and he went for it.

“What are you doing?”

Amazingly, his prayer was well received. Without asking me first, Joe invited his new coed friend back to the hotel. She brought a friend.

“Dude…dude…get the fuck up. There’s two girls coming over here.”

I thought he was full of shit. He wasn’t. Within minutes there were two somewhat attractive college girls in our room drinking champagne (no idea where that came from) and doing lines off of the nightstand. Imagine the two prostitutes that Lieutenant Dan freaked out on in Forrest Gump, and it’s pretty much what I was dealing with. I didn’t freak out on them, though. All I remember is Lady Gaga blaring from an iPhone that was sitting in an empty hotel glass in a failed attempt to create a bangin’ speaker system. Oh, well. Because a gentleman never hooks up with a decent looking college girl and tells, I’ll never tell you what happened.

JK, we totally boned. That was Friday. .

Read Part 2 and Part 3

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Adrian Smeltre