Photo: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid
As your chances of getting into a frat party dwindle during Winter Quarter, there’s surely a void in your social life that you’re going to need to fill. With that in mind, Intel decided to compile a collection of some of the best and most-typical dorm parties. Glean from the stories what you will and learn the dos and don’ts of dorm-room drinking.
Bobb pregame blunder
With its reputation as the number-one party dorm in the nation, Bobb lives up to its name. During one full-out dorm rager, we made my roommate’s desk into a bar, invited a shitload of randos and tuned into fratmusic.com. Perhaps the fact that our Dixie cup shots were definitely way bigger than normal shots led me to believe it was a good idea to leave the party unattended. I left my room to head to my frat. After passing out there and regaining consciousness in the morning, I made the trek back to my room around 7 a.m. and found a girl asleep on my floor with left-over goodies from the previous nights surrounding her—cameras, wallets, jackets, purses, and crumpled Dixie cups. I would come to find out that police took three of her friends to the hospital. In true Bobb style, my CA helped clean up and the incident was never discussed.
Questionable Elder hygiene
Some freshmen made multiple types of jungle juice in their trash cans and recycle bins for a self-described “rager” they were throwing in their room. They hid the trashcans under a desk so when the CA came in all he saw was a bunch of people listening to Christmas music and drinking “punch.” The lucky bastards didn’t get written up. Damn freshmen.
Breaking stereotypes in Hinman
As a freshman, finding a slab of wood in the basement of Hinman was a bizarre moment that I was, in good conscious, forced to capitalize on. With our theatre friend at rehearsal and his room ever so conveniently unlocked, we took over his dorm room, flipped two garbage cans upside down and played pong on the slab. We were the South-campus version of frat stars. When he returned a few hours later and realized we were getting hammered, he was pissed. This subsided as soon as we got him drunk.
Allison “Bad Decisions”
The most memorable party was titled “Primal Urges,” presented by our “frarority,” and hosted in my Allison dorm room. We crammed 30 people in, and it was quite a success. Its successor, “Bad Decisions”—this was circa Britney Spears’ head-shaving antics, so we were inspired—unfortunately (and ironically) was a bad decision. We again fit 30 people in my room, turned my dresser into a bar, I believe I made a speech while standing on a chair, and we were shortly busted by a bitchy CA from the 4th floor. All alcohol was emptied into the laundry room sinks across the hall; the CA was particularly appalled when she spotted a bottle of Everclear in the corner. That went down the drain as well. Needless to say, I was on housing probation for a very long time. However, a warning: If you do this very early in your college career, your mom will call you crying, because she thinks you’re going to get kicked out of Northwestern, and then you’ll get emails from your dad telling you he knows you’re fine but will you please do something about your mother, she’s hysterical.
Hostess-with-the-mostess in Sargent
With four friends from home visiting me in my Sargent double, we were cramped for space as it was. Add my best friend’s friends and we were at capacity for a spontaneous dorm party in my shoebox-sized room. As is typical of many freshmen, I had a weird roommate and while we took a moment to smoke a little weed, she managed to haul her entire mattress—pillows, blankets, and all—out of the room to god knows where. As the party wound down, our friends ended up sleeping on the box springs.
Willard watchmen
To not get caught, I would station a person outside the room for a shift with a laptop on Facebook chat to warn those inside when the CAs came around. We would take the proper precautions—turn down the music and stop playing pong for a minute—and then quickly resume festivities. Side note: Target sells tables that just so happen to fold up and perfectly fit under a bed.
How to use a Hinman kitchenette
Midday on Friday after the first week of class freshman year, I broke out the handle of vodka that I schlepped from home. Much to my surprise, a boy on my floor also procured a handle from home. Obviously this was ground for bonding. What better use of cheap vodka and the handy kitchenette at our disposal than to craft some Jell-O shots? The only catch: neither of us knew how to make these gelatinous elixirs and decided to boil the vodka. Yes. We were stupid. As we boiled the vodka, it naturally began to reek of booze and our CA took note. When she asked for a sample of our concoction, we lied and told her it was sugar-free and she wouldn’t like it. She left us alone and we ate it with our hands because we are children.
