Things are about to get weird on this campus. I’m not talking about the workload finally hitting people and immediately transforming them into zombies or that next weekend all of us are going to get drunk on the Lord’s Day and confirm that Fetty Wap exists during daytime hours. No, I’m talking about something a lot scarier.

This campus is about to be overrun with adults — real adults, not just legal adults — and children — real children, not just sorority littles. That’s right, graduates old and new are preparing to flock back to their “happy place” and ignore the realities of life — again — for a weekend. So, stock up your bunker/Ernie single with Natty Light and ramen noodles and follow these tips on how to survive a weekend with actual human beings:

1. Do not approach the children to shotgun a beer with you

While it might seem like a great idea to have a child pop the tab for you because their fingers are so small and dexterous, if you’ve had more beers than you have fingers, avoid this at all costs.

2. Do not allow yourself to be approached by an adult 

There’s this thing adults like to do when they are returning back to a place of some significance in their life, called “reminiscing,” where they look back on all of the debauchery and fun memories they hold near and dear and then they trap you and make you listen to them drone on and on. Boring. You don’t have to listen to this.You’re forever young.

3. Eat the free food

While a generally good survival tip is to eat, this one goes out specifically to all my frugal people living in houses they realistically can’t afford. A lot of the Homecoming events have food and since it’s the rich alumni that can afford to come back to relive their college days for a weekend — see: “reminiscing” above — the university caters with the good stuff. Eat, my pretties. For as soon as the dawn of Monday arrives, it is back to pretending to be interested in campus events with Varsity pizza to sustain yourself.

4. When drunkenly screaming, choose from a pre-approved list  

You scream, I scream, we all drunkenly scream when we are making our way from the pregame to the game. What about? Nothing honestly. It usually roots itself in “you’ll never believe what he/she did” and then cooks in a potluck of profanity, which is naturally overheard by every family in the Tri-State area. In order to limit corruption of youth minds to just the intentional this weekend, some phrases you can yell that can be repeated in a preschool without resulting in a call home: “Clifford the big red dog,” “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” and “We are all slowly dying and all I got was this lousy daydrunk.”

5. Stop singing the song “Closer”

This has nothing to do with the adults and children. I just really want everyone to stop playing this song. Given the nature of this weekend and the Peter Pan syndrome inherit in the lyrics “We ain’t ever getting older,” I have a feeling I’m just going to have to bite that tattoo on my shoulder with this one.

Follow these tips and I am sure you will survive until it is your turn to come back to campus and make all of the undergraduates uncomfortable by the fact that even after graduation nobody knows what they are doing in life.

Patty  Terhune  is a senior policy studies and television, radio and film dual major. She definitely has Peter Pan syndrome or maybe she just can’t get out of those green tights. You can follow her on Twitter @pattyterhune or reach her at paterhun@syr.edu. 

 

Published on September 13, 2016 at 9:19 pm