"Oh-My-God, Becky! Look at her butt!"

I took another swig from the Smirnoff bottle, then thought about what was ahead – I promptly starting chugging from the bottle.

The thing about speedo trunks is the tightness around your junk. It is a constant, confining pressure that registers every slight movement. If you want to judge what direction the wind is blowing, put on a pair of speedos and let nature blow you. Magnifying the usual discomfort one feels while wearing speedo trunks was the fact that pair I had on was several sizes too small.

My fraternity and pledge brother, Rick, had been a competitive swimmer. When the siren's call of Mary Jane supplanted sterility and choline, he retired his trunks. Since I didn't own a pair of speedos myself, it was nice of him to loan me his.

While you couldn't necessarily tell the difference by looking at us, Rick and I weren't in the same weight class. Rick was a very fit 160 pounds; I was a svelte 240 pounds. Thankfully, speedos are elastic by nature and even our significant disparity in size was manageable – of course, after five minutes wearing Rick's speedos, I had no feeling below the the taint.

In a little under fifteen minutes I had drank a half bottle of vodka and shotgunned several beers. I wasn't nearly drunk enough for what was to come next.

My pledge class was up next to perform a synchronized swimming routine. I thought hazing ending freshman year, yet here I was a sophomore about to humiliate myself for the good of the house. At the time, I grimly accepted my role, but in retrospect I would have been better off having my stomach pumped with charcoal instead.

Delta Gamma -- a sorority comprised of deceptively attractive women, the kind of girls who look real good after eight or nine beers -- hosted a yearly charity event, Anchor Splash. It raised thousands of dollars for the retarded or was it the blind, I never really understood the difference myself.

The synchronized swimming event capped off a week of fund raising activities, which involved good natured competition between the various Greek houses to see who would raise the most money and win the most events. There was even a trophy for the winner.

Sir Mix-a-Lot's feminist triumph Baby Got Back was our song. I was the star. It was my job to shake that ass – and shake that ass I did.

I can only imagine what my backside performance looked like to the crowd. I like to think it was viewed as an undulating mass contained only by thin layer of synthetic which at any moment threatened to break away to reveal the unspeakable horror within. On the other hand, based on the awkward silence broken by intervals of sporadic, nervous laughter, I think it was much worse than that.

At the song's conclusion, I was supposed to jump into the water, along with my brothers, and perform a water routine. I jumped into the pool and immediately started to drown.
I didn't drink enough alcohol to prevent stage fright, however I had consumed enough to greatly inhibit moderate motor control. I flapped my arms at frantic pace, which in turn negated my natural state of buoyancy. I was literally drinking the pool in when one of the guys took me by the shoulder indicated the water was only four feet deep.

To be fair, between the copious amounts of alcohol and lack of of blood flow to my lower extremities, my near death experience in forty eight inches of water should have been expected – remember, it is possible to drown from a teaspoon of water, especially if you are a complete and utter moron.

Our routine ended, I clamored up the side of the pool and nearly lost the speedos along the way. After readjusting the trunks to the crowd's abject horror, I stumbled off after my fraternity brothers. We didn't win the synchronized swimming portion of the competition.

Apparently, the two judges, who happened to be professors in the history department, were not impressed by the rhythmic writhing of my ass. It was at the moment that I crossed off history as a potential major.

My shaky show at shaking my booty notwithstanding, my fraternity won the overall Anchor Splash competition. We broke the trophy later that night.

The Infamous Mr. Wilson

First semester, sophomore year in college was supposed to be special. All of my classes were scheduled on Tuesday and Thursday, which left me with a four day weekend to take trips, visit friends and explore all that I could be. It didn't quite work out that way.

I spent my sophomore year in a drunken haze, interrupted by very brief bouts of sobriety and the pained realization at what my life had become. This story isn't about the bathroom fixtures I destroyed, the women I stalked or even the pledge I threatened to disembowel, instead this is a lesson on how best to alienate a professor, then rub his face in the fact.

I was technically a political science major – Buddha's call of non-being still hadn't taken hold, so it only made sense that I take a political philosophy class, especially one taught by the most lenient professor in the department. Although the 9:00 am start time did give me pause. The instructor, Professor Steinberg, was reputed to give only one take home exam, which accounted for your entire grade, and he also did not keep attendance, unlike the rest of the den mother's in the department. For a burgeoning alcoholic who took classes two days week, promptly skipped those two days and spent the entire week hopped up on hops and rye, it seemed perfect.

Much to my immediate chagrin, Steinberg had recently changed his policy and required a minimum class attendance of only four unexcused absences with each additional absence resulting in a lowered letter grade. He even went so far as to take a roll call before each lecture. This wouldn't do, there was no way I could feasibly be up by 9:00 am, hell it wasn't unusual for me to be passed out until 9:00 pm.

After two weeks and four classes, I decided to treat his new policy as an unsubstantiated bluff – the man was nearing retirement and senility, he had better things to do than babysit a bunch of disinterested drunks playing at being students. I proceeded to skip the next twelve weeks and twenty four classes. Bear in mind the class met for sixteen weeks and a thirty-two classes total.

I sauntered into his class like I owned it – okay, actually I stumbled into the class half drunk from the night before, but I was a confident drunk nonetheless. Several of my friends, who were also in the class, had warned me throughout the semester that Steinberg was serious about the new attendance policy, I usually responded with a unintelligible grunt or by shotgunning a beer. Professor Steinberg took attendance. Dolan soon gave way Wagner, my name was up next.

Steinberg's tone seemed to change as he called my name. While earlier he used a monotone voice, he grew agitated and lively when he said: "ROBERT WILSON. WILSON?" I meekly replied: "Here." He stared directly into my eyes, as if to somehow bore a hole into my soul, took a long pause and said: "So you are the infamous Mr Wilson, huh. I thought you dropped this class. We really need to talk. Stay after class."

I don't remember that day's lecture, which makes it much like every other class I hadn't attended. However Steinberg's admonishment had quickly sobered me up. I faced the real possibility of failing his class, which would have an adverse effect on my stellar 2.5 GPA. A variety of questions flooded my thoughts: Was there anything I could do or say? What relative could I kill off as an excuse? Was I the one who reeked of beer, stale cigarette smoke and Eric's Incredible Pizza?

The next thing I the knew the bell sounded. Class was over. My friends could barely hide their smirks, like sarcastic sharks they circled my chair, they knew what was coming. After the assholes left, Professor Steinberg walked over to my desk.

"By all accounts, you should fail this class." I made a motion to interject, Steinberg shook his head and continued: "I will make you deal. Turn in the final take home exam and I will give you a C. "

I was taken aback. I missed seventy-five percent of his class; I contributed absolutely nothing to the class discussion; I thumbed my nose at the professors' attendance and grading policy, yet I was still in position to pass.

Not to be one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I responded: "What if I write an absolutely fantastic paper, wouldn't that constitute at least a B?" He gave me a pained look, shook his head no and pointed to the door.

I decided it was best to take my leave. I had a busy day ahead. I needed to track down a recent obituary to show my African American Studies professor that my grandmother had recently died, thus explaining why I missed his 2:30 pm exam.

Believe

I now vividly remember the leggy blond standing half naked in the hallway. Unlike most disheveled and disrobed women I happened upon in college, she wasn't crying or noticeably drunk, she was fully in control - except for the part about not being clothed and gawked at by five drunk guys in the hall.

How did she end up in a dorm hallway with little more than a bra and panties on? She had been forcefully kicked out by a friend* as No I don't need you anymore faded into the background. Why? His girlfriend was coming over - she also lived only a couple dorms & minutes away.
Y
ou see, the HIV was the noted Lothario on campus; the guy you don't invite to your wedding because he will try to sleep with your wife, then settle for your mom. Yet, notorious womanizer or not, the HIV had a girlfriend, whom he ostensibly cared enough for not to sleep with other women in her immediate vicinity.

You may wonder how I know the particulars of story, it is actually quite simple: two of my best friends lived next door to the HIV, and he was also one of our fraternity brothers. Like any two-faced bastard, he bragged about his accomplishment, unlike most heterosexual men however, he was a fan of Cher's magnum opus, Believe, and would play it anytime he had sex.

I spent many a night drinking with my two buddies next door, listening to Believe reverberating through the walls, punctuated by the occasional grunt during the chorus. As I just mentioned, the chorus was generally accompanied by a noise, not by screams of protest. Being gentlemen, my friends and are were honor bound to see what was going on, and that is when I gazed upon the leggy blond standing clad in little more than flimsy beachwear in the hall.

The events of that night weren't that out of the ordinary, in fact, I witnessed and participated in more interesting fare – some of which has been cataloged here; however, I never completely forgot that winter night during my freshman year, but I wonder if she did?

Skip seven years into the future. A young lady worked for a very prominent libertarian think tank, she even wrote several articles for them dealing with social security reform. While trying to track down a girl I used to stalk in college, I came upon one of her articles. It was extremely well written, reasoned and entertaining, especially considering the subject matter. Upon further research I discovered that the author went to college with me, she in fact was in my 2002 graduating class – I even tracked down a picture of her. She seemed familiar but I didn't know from where.

Over the next two years I was a semi-regular reader of her blog. I will be honest, while I generally dismiss libertarian thought as much too anarchistic, her clever and witty words actually changed my mind on several key issues like social security reform and how (not) to regulate identity theft. Then one day, while glancing at her picture in the corner of her blog's bio, I suffered a moment of crystalline clarity, I did remember her from college: She was the leggy blond in the hall.

Generally one shouldn't judge a person based on the ill-conceived romantic happenings of youth. But when it involves the HIV, well, that is a different story entirely. She might be smart, witty and quite the persuasive writer but she was also a tainted, oh-so-dirty whore.

*In consideration of his privacy and our close bond, I will refer to my "friend", David Ravi Mayer from Kula, Hawaii, as the HIV in this story.

Why the HIV? Because the HIV had sex with such a ridiculous amount of women, many of whom themselves were whores, that there is a high statistical probability he contracted one venereal disease or another (or all of them.) To be fair, however, I do not know this to be a fact (just an extreme likelihood) and would never suggest it as such. He is my good friend after all.