Fly by Night

There are certain things about college that I find terrifyingly gauche. Tonight I was lying awake in my cozy extra-long twin bed, while a gaggle of inebriated underclassmen hosted some sort of end-of-year alcoholic extravaganza in the suite above me. I could bear the incessant throbbing of their dreadful music, but then, the terrifying occurred: I heard the sudden pitter-patter of dozens of nineteen-year-old feet storming the staircase, accompanied by the following chant: "NAKED RUN! NAKED RUN! NAKED PARTY!"

The Yale phenomenon of the 'Naked Party' is on par with the proliferation all-male a cappella groups: I suppose it is a nice pastime for those involved, but I'd rather not have to hear about the nude pseudo-homoerotic bonding rituals central to both these Yale 'institutions.'

When I was a senior in boarding school, I would jump into the pond with underclassmen boys, but it was more of a spur-of-the-moment encounter involving wet t-shirts and broken curfews. In college this sort of midnight debauchery seems pretentious, premeditated, and, consequently—prepubescent. The same goes for a cappella singing.