Ahhh…I love the smell of BBQ and beer in the morning.  When you’re in college, a sporting event isn’t a four hour activity.  It’s an all day marathon. From sunrise to way past sunset.  In most cases, heavy drinking would be in store.  But not today my friends. Today, I will be observing this wonderful activity from the eyes of a sober guy.

It’s 7:00am and I am woken from a deep slumber by the sounds of “Rocky Top” blaring from upstairs.  Really?  7am?  Give me a freaking break.  The game doesn’t start until 8 tonight.  Maybe I can sleep through this.  Just before I train my ears to withstand this sensual onslaught, my door swings open.  My roommate slides in wearing nothing but socks, boxers, and sunglasses playing air guitar with a handle of Jim Beam.  Dude.  I tell him to leave and let me sleep a little longer.  He replies with, “Go ahead and try, see what happens”, then leaves the room.  I decide to call his bluff.  Big mistake.  Just when I am about to fall back asleep, the music stops.  Thank God.  It is a premature shout out to the big man upstairs, as “Tarzan Boy” starts blaring.  For those of you unfamiliar with “Tarzan Boy”:

Fine, I’ll get up.  I head upstairs to get some breakfast and all five of my roomies are outside drinking off the keg left over from last night.  Reminder, it’s about 7:30…am. I’m pretty sure they just picked up where they left off last night seeing as two hours of sleep really doesn’t kill any buzz from a solid Friday.  Animals.  They are chatting amongst themselves about how the night will turn out.  “Dude, there are gonna be sooo many fine girls at the fraternity house, and I am going to hit on all of them.”  Or, “Dude, the Velcro Pygmies are playing at the bar after the game, there are gonna be sooo many fine girls there, and I’m going to hit on all of them.”  Aspirations that are sure to fail.  I think to myself, alright we’ve got 5 guys here.  All of which are about to drink their body weight in alcohol.  Hmmm…according to my math, two will not make it to the game, due to exhaustion from drinking all day, of course.  One will make it to the game, but will pass out in a shrub on the walk back.  One will make it back to the house to change before heading to the bar, but will pass out with his shirt halfway on and one leg in his pants.  And the last will come ever so close to his goal.  He will not only make it to the bar, but he will talk to some of these women.  In his mind it will be going great, but with sober eyes I will see the truth.  I will cover this later.

Everybody is dressed, drinks are prepared, time to head to the fraternity house for some tailgating. One of the best parts of being in a fraternity is a personal driver.  Yes, it’s true.  It is known as Beeper.  Give this poor guy a call and he will come to your doorstep and take you wherever you’d like to go.  In this case we are going to do some tailgating.  A buddy makes the call: “Beeper!  If you’re not here in 5 minutes you’re f****d!”.   This is an impossible request seeing as it will take at least 30 minutes to arrive with all of the game day traffic.  But you can just imagine the look on that poor pledge’s face.  Priceless.  Since we have some time to kill, I’ll just sit back and listen to my friends rant and rave”.

For the five years I was enrolled in college, my friends and I had the same conversation over and over and over again.  We just never realized it.  Here are some examples.  “Dude, did you see Dave at the bar last night?  Yeah, he pissed himself and didn’t realize it”.  “Henry drank so much last night, he dropped his handle of Jager and cut himself while he was picking up the pieces.  After that he puked and pissed himself, and then shit his pants while cleaning up”.  (True story).   “You should have seen the woofer that Tim hooked up with last night.  After they were done, he had to wash his hands with Evan Williams to get the smell off”. (Unfortunately, another true story).  It’s incredible that we all have degrees now.

Beeper arrives.  Time to head to the fraternity house to pregame.  We pack 6 guys and 4 girls that we picked up on the drive over in a 1999 Ford Taurus.  Talk about uncomfortable.  I pretty much know the exact anatomy of the girl on my lap since we are crammed in so tight.  We get to the house and one by one we pop out of the car. One friend yells, “Beeper, if you’re not here at this exact spot ten minutes after the game to pick me up, you’re f****d!”  He will hear this same request twenty more times. None of which will be at this exact spot.

Inside the house, there are a plethora of girls and guys dressed in orange and white.  A beautiful sight.  One girl has already hit the drinking circuit hard.  I know this because she is keeled over on the couch with five people standing around her taking pictures. Poor girl.  She will probably swear off drinking.  Good luck with that.  I follow my friends around to get in some good sober observation time but nothing is really happening.

Fast forward 2 hours.  Lots of things are happening.  I look outside and the token fat pledge is dancing to “My Humps” on the front porch.  By himself.  300+ pounds of Black Eyed Peas magic jiggling around.  Someone chucks a beer can from the above balcony and it hits him in the head.  He doesn’t even flinch.  On the front lawn there are two guys fighting.  I can’t tell if they are serious or not.  They pause, and one throws up. They laugh.  I guess they weren’t serious.  Girls are trolling around the house looking for free booze. Vultures.  It must be nice to have a vagina sometimes.  You NEVER have to pay for drinks.  But then you have to give labor so I’ll stick with my penis.

Game time draws close and I decide to sit back and gauge the intoxication level of these die hard fans.  Wow. I guess I’ve never realized before how serious some people take this.  Drinking comes first before the game.  College is awesome.  We head to the stadium where we wait in a 30 minute line to get through the gates.  This should provide some solid observations. I watch as the police pull beers, airplane bottles, and fifths out of pants, purses, and cowboy boots.  Here’s a tip for those lucky enough to still be in college: Pour your liquor of choice into a ziploc bag and tuck it in the front you your pants.  Sneakery that is guaranteed to work. We make it through the gauntlet of patrons and get to our seats.  I guess you can call these seats. More like middle school bleachers that sway every time someone sneezes. There is a guy passed out underneath these bleachers to my right.  Ziploc bags are being pulled from pants all over.  Let the game begin.

We make it to halftime and it is HOT.  I’m sweating more than a prostitute in church. And so is everyone else.  There are some guys with their shirts off that put “My Humps” to shame.  The guy behind me opens his mustard packet to load up his hot dog.  He is so hammered that he squeezes the wrong end and mustard shoots all over the back of my neck.  Duuudeee.  Had I been in my usual game day state this would not have bothered me.  But I’m sober.  And this is miserable.  I decide to call it a day and head back home until the after party.

Fast forward five hours and we are at the band party at the local joint on the strip.  The Velcro Pygmies.  Few words get Tennessee students more pumped that the name of this band:

This aged 80’s cover band is the tits.  They pack the first five rows with some unbelievable talent.  Some of these ladies will be lucky enough to have a lollipop put in their mouth by the lead singer.  Classy.  And what else screams class like having a song in their repertoire called “Pussy Whipped”.  Instead of clapping, the crowd makes vaginas with their hands and waves them around.

There are people stumbling around all over this bar.  Some probably don’t even realize that there is a band playing at an ear drum busting level.  Shouts of “FREEBIRD!” ring out.  Wrong genre, but I’m pretty sure the guys that yell this would do so at a Madonna concert.  “My Humps” still has his shirt off, elbowing girls to get to the front row.  He’s like a steamroller.  I bet he lost his shirt.  I called it.  Only one of my friends actually made it to the bar.  He is working his magic on some ugly chick in the shadows.  I move in for a closer look.  Yeah,  this girl is ugly.  He probably thinks that she looks like Heidi Klum so I decide to let him be.  Is that drool hanging from the corner of his mouth? Yep, it’s drool.  And is he petting her?  Yep, he most certainly is.  Good thing she’s just as drunk and doesn’t realize that he is treating her like his Golden Retriever. Uh oh.  Here comes her friend.  She’s definitely the DUFF.  If you aren’t sure what a DUFF is, here the definition from Urban Dictionary:

DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend

Two hot chicks at a bar will have a really nasty fat ugly bitch hanging out with them, refered to as a “DUFF”.

This spells doom.  She grabs the girl’s arm and sweeps her away.  My buddy stares in disappointment with his tongue hanging out, drool and all.  There are plenty more fish in the sea.  Don’t be discouraged.

All in all it was a solid day of sober observations.  I got to uncover a side of tailgating that I rarely see.  The debauchery is abundant.  The girls are hot.  And the drinking is out of control.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.