Friday Confessional: I Go Back to Spring Cocktail

This morning, as I surveyed my desk and muttered under my breath about how I really can't handle the little house imps that must come in here and mess up my stuff at night, my eyes lit upon a forgotten relic of the past: a cd book.

If you're old enough to remember when Zack Morris coined the phrase, "tv time-out", you know what I'm talking about: the soft-covered Case Logic case, usually black, which, when unzipped, reveals a treasure trove of 80-minute windows into the Millenial's teenaged soul.

Yes, that would be Bewitched and DMB. No shame in my game.

My coworkers have been disturbingly not disturbed as they wander in here to find me, head bent over a manuscript with pink pen in hand, lip syncing and chair dancing to such classics as India.Ari's "Not Your Average Girl" and Missy Elliot's "Get Ur Freak On". My reaction has typically been just to look up mid-lip-synced-lyric ("That'cho chiiiiiiick?"), find out what they want as quickly as possible and then send them on their way.

I'm just now getting to the cds with no labels, so I'll be sure to take note of what songs are on them so that I can report back in a later post. In the meantime, one cd that WAS labeled was my Kappa Delta Bids Day Mix compilation from the semester I joined my sorority, which includes the following sweet jams:

1. The Cheers Theme
2. Baby One More Time
3. Baby Got Back
4. I Wanna Be a Supermodel
5. In the Club
6. Stacey's Mom
7. Like a Virgin
8. Barbie Girl
9. Sugar, Sugar
10. Give A Little Bit
11. Breakaway
12. That's What Friends Are For
13. To Make You Feel My Love
14. The Rose

Obviously, this cd brought back a ton of memories, particularly of my pledge period. My pledge class was sort of unique, in that the semester I went through recruitment ("rush" in Sweet Valley-speak), my sorority was almost at total -- which is a PC way of saying that they were so popular that they only had room to take a few new members. Total is like a salary cap on a sports team's budget; Greek Life comes up with a finite number of girls allowed in each sorority, so that the houses are all on even footing and have a fair shot at attracting new members.

As it happened, I completely ignored the advice they give you at Recruitment Orientation and went into the entire process knowing exactly which house I wanted to join (note to any collegiate readers out there: do as I say, not as I do. I later became a Rho Psi who wasn't allowed to walk out the front door non-biased recruitment group leader and really, it's best to keep an open mind when going through the first round of house tours). I also knew they only had five slots, and that as a second semester sophomore, it was kind of do-or-die as far as my Greek life aspirations went. Thankfully, after two weeks of meticulously planned outfits, heat-styled hair and incessant self-promotion, I received my coveted white rose along with an embossed green and white bid card. I was in!

How they let me in with that hair is another question....YIKES!

Because my pledge class was so small, we were nicknamed the "Fab Five" by our VP of New Member Ed ("Pledgemaster" via Animal House). Over our six week pledge period of fun group activities and social events, we went from being five virtual strangers to pretty good friends. This bonding experience culminated, of course, in our pledge retreat, during which we were charged with writing a "Pledge Song" to be performed at the Spring Cocktail. On our Bids Day (a big party they throw for you after you get your bid), all the older classes had performed their songs, many of which were featured on today's mix cd -- Stacey's Mom (aptly retitled, "KD Girls have got it goin' on...."), Like a Virgin ("Like a KD... pledged for the very first time!") and Barbie Girl ("I'm a KD girl, in a KD world...).

With creativity like that, we obviously had a lot to live up to.

Riffing on our rep as the "Fab 5", we initially wrote an EPICALLY horrible version of the Jackson 5's "ABC" -- we knew it was terrible, but we wanted to get down to the business of watching "My Best Friend's Wedding," so we said the heck with it and performed it at breakfast the next morning anyway. The look on the ten sisters' faces when we did the "big reveal" at the end of our retreat was priceless. Horror mixed with revulsion mixed with "omg wtf did we do?!" is a pretty accurate description.

Because we're mean, the five of us decided to let the girls who had been present at the retreat continue to think that we were super proud of our song and couldn't wait to perform it at cocktail. Looking from the inside out, I can only imagine what they told the rest of the house when we got back to school -- probably that they had made the worst mistake in KD history and the entire sisterhood was doomed. Meanwhile, we met a few times in the dorms and completely re-wrote the entire thing, from scratch.

And so, it was to everyone's great surprise and delight that, mid-way through our inaugural Spring Fling cocktail, my four newly-initiated sisters and I clutched our microphones, giggled incessantly,  hit the lights, cued the dj, and busted out THIS sweet jam:

"If you wanna be a KD

You gotta start as a pledge

Wear that pin forever

The fun it never ends!

If you wanna be a KD

Your time you'll have to give

Meetings go forever but that's the way it is."

Glammed up and ready for my debut

Obviously, the highlight was the finale, which included us screaming, "CHEER IT OUT LOUD, WE'RE KAPPA DELTA PROUD" as we jumped up and down like chihuahuas on speed, high-fiving each other and hyping the crowd.

Obviously, we were a huge hit. Because if you know any sorority girls? You know one thing.

They LOVE to cheer.

Have a good weekend, everyone! And a special shout out to my East Coasters -- stay safe!