by Alexander Jacobson
My name is Bratt Foy. I rushed seventeen of Penn’s twenty seven fraternities and got half a bid. Well, I didn’t really get any bids, but one of the Beta guys said “go to Tri-delt, maybe they can help you” so I counted that as half a bid. After thinking it through, I came up with ten reasons for why I should have had a bid.
1. As evidenced by me being personally reflective enough to come up with this list and beginning this sentence with “as evidenced”, I’d fit into any fraternity.
2. I made the effort to fit in. I wore four collared polos and popped all of them. I said “Yeah brah” as many times as I could fathom. I bought aviator glasses big enough to be windshields and shiny enough to conceal both mine and my room mate’s hangovers. And I popped them. I wore plaid shorts and popped them. I even grabbed my room mate’s balls in preparation for the elephant walk… and popped them.
3. I’m amazing at man-flirting. Brothers shouldn’t flirt like that if they aren’t going to give you a bid. I was so good at flirting there were lines of thirty chicks outside the house waiting for me. I even remember which frats they were; Sigma Kappa, Alpha Phi, Alpha Chi Omega, Phi Sigma Sigma and Delta Delta Delta.
4. I can chug like a moose. One of the brothers called me out on it, so I fucking grabbed a cup, dunked it into the trashcan of jungle-juice and went off like a gazelle. Then my esophagus wreaked revenge and went off like a gazelle all over their bathroom. Which brings me to my next point.
5. I’m awesome at pledging.
6. Every fraternity takes rushes bowling. This is totally unfair. Bowling is not representative of athletic acumen, so I really don’t see why asking for bumpers was such a big deal. If the five year old and his closest forty seven friends all use bumpers, why can’t I use bumpers when I’m blackout drunk on jungle juice?
7. I should not be held responsible for what I do not remember. First off, getting in a brothers face about bowling a 70 is hilarious, not aggressively competitive. Second, I was totally right to whip out my piece when that conniving and competitive excuse for a brother stepped over the line trying to get a leg up. Third, that was a perfectly reasonable time to bring up my Dad’s years in Nam… young deserving young men died for our chance to bowl that night. Finally, we were drinking white Russians, so even if I should be responsible—I say if it’s even loosely related to the Big Lebowski, it should have gotten me a bid. That’s a great movie.
8. I already have a fake ID, so I wouldn’t have been using the brothers just to get alcohol. They would have been my only source of women, pot, housing next year, entertainment, self-esteem, sweet chapter T-shirts, friends, pong tables, and personal fulfillment but the alcohol I could get myself.
9. Just look at my Facebook profile. I’m such a cool guy. I’m wearing sunglasses in my picture, and I’m not wearing pants. I have The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen in my music tastes. I have more than 743 wall-posts in the last eleven months. I even changed my religious views to ‘beer pong’ and “Interested in:” to “Brahs before Hoes.”
10. I brought the hottest date to their date party, which alone should have gotten me a bid. Who cares if a brother set me up with her? Who cares if she doesn’t go to Penn? Who cares if she cusses at you when you don’t give her spare change?