College.

I went to college. Of the four male humans I spend the most time with, three I went to college with. We went to Small Liberal Arts College in Smalltown, USA, class of '00. Last weekend was homecoming and we decided to go, seeing as it has been five years and all. We spent the weekend hanging out with each other. We can do that at home.

College is 90 miles northwest of the city we live in. Except for one of us who lives 15 miles away. That would be my dancing Mexican friend. Our plan was to go to school and hang around on Saturday afternoon, go to a cookout at our fraternity, then go back to our Mexican friends' house for food and alcohol.

Like I said, college is 90 miles away. The highway occupying this 90-mile stretch has five toll collection things at 80 cents each, except for the last one, which is now a dollar. In college it was 40 cents. Oh, how times change. I decided to dump out my change jar and fill sandwich bags with exactly 80 cents of pennies and nickels, so I wouldn't have to do any counting in the car. "I am so smart for being prepared, Ms. Brick will be so proud of me," I thought. The thing with this is, you have to be careful to actually remove the change from the plastic baggy when paying your toll. Failing to do so will cause much unneeded headaches. At toll booth #4, I let the baggy slip out of my hand and it went down the plastic basket thing. I couldn't get it out. One booth at toll station#4 is now jammed with a bag of change. Luckily traffic was light so I was able to back up and go through a different booth. I happily paid the 80 cents again, carefully dumping the coins into my hand before depositing them. Sorry, next guy to try that booth. I can just picture someone futiley (is that a word? it sure doesn't look like one) tossing coins into the basket with nothing happening, which I'm sure happened seconds after I fled the scene. Later, toll booth employees sent to investigate the jammed machine would discover the bag of change. "Hey there's a bag of change clogging the thing...what kind of moron would throw a bag of change in here?" they would ask. There was a sign on the toll booth as we pulled up that said: "No Dollar Bills." I bet it now says: "No Dollar Bills. Also, if your coins are in a sandwich bag, please remove them from the sandwich bag before depositing them. Do not deposit the sandwich bag."

We got to college okay. There was supposed to be cookout at our fraternity at noon. It got bumped to 6:30. There were about three current members there and our one friend we don't like that graduated with us hanging around. He is a subject for a different post. I can't talk about him now, it would take too long. Let's just say that when he is talking you want him to stop talking. In fact, I actually said that to him once. He was talking at me, I was staring ahead blankly, and I said: "Please stop talking."

So we hung around the house a little bit, it still looked pretty dumpy like I remember. Ms. Brick was thoroughly appalled. "This looks like crap, how did you live here?" she said, or something to that effect. I'll admit, it wasn't too nice (the class of '00 made it a whole heck of a lot nicer while we were there, though; new paint, carpets, new computers, fuck you class of '97 you damn slobs) but I wouldn't trade those 2.5 years I lived in room 315 of TKE for anything. I saw naked boobs for the first time in that room. Okay, so I didn't see real live naked boobs until I was 19. I'm shy. Shoot me.

I was hoping to see more people, but there didn't seem to be anything going on. It seemed like just another random Saturday on a small college campus. We only saw a few people we knew. I saw my sophomore year roommate and managed to avoid him. He was a hairy fellow who thought exercising naked on the floor was a good idea. I didn't feel the need to speak with him. I don't know what his deal was. It's not like our college didn't have a fitness center. Maybe he was opposed to their "clothing required" policy. That reminds me, one time I was working out, and a guy wearing nothing but a Speedo came in and started doing dumbbell curls. The next day there was a sign up that said "Shirt and shoes required." Then the same guy comes in wearing a shirt, shoes, and a Speedo. For some reason I found this more disturbing than just a Speedo.

So we went out to lunch and back to Ubaldo's house (the Mexican, from now on I will cease referring to him as the "dancing Mexican" and call him by his first name. I will not attempt to give him a stupid nickname like "Senor Brick". Stupid nicknames are reserved for me and Ms. Brick). He, Scott, and I played 1-on-1-on-1 basketball while Ms. Brick and Mrs. Ubaldo shopped. Ms. Scott was studying. Scott and Ubaldo each won one game and I won two. I kind of cheated in the last game, though, because it's impossible to guard my baseline jumper.

We went back to Ubaldo's and he made these skirt steak fajita taco things that he always makes. They were good. Even better than tamales you can buy from a random guy in a bar (see Poker Night.) We also tried to make mojitos. That's a hard drink to make. You can't just throw the ingredients together. You have to grind mint leaves and melt sugar and it still doesn't come out right. Hopefully someday I will get it right, as it is quite tasty and I pride myself in the quality of my mixed drinks.

No one got drunk and everyone was in bed before midnight. My God, what has become of us? Is 27 the age at which loserdom sets in?

Sigh.