New Year’s is over. You’ve already broken your resolution to eat less, exercise more, or be nice to people. Life on break has become a steady routine of naps, no pants, and forced interactions with relatives and high-school friends and you’re itching to return to that uninhibited rampage of booze, butts, and skipped classes you call college. The hangovers, the vomit-stained outfits, and the horrible smells from the fall’s welcome week are a distant memory now, but the sequel is on the horizon and Welcome Week II, much like WWII, is more unpredictable than it’s predecessor. Be like England, not like the United States, and jump into the carnage and glory of WWII as soon as you can.
#1—Direction: Especially if you only started attending classes in the fall, this Welcome Week you’re going to know where to go and, more importantly, where to avoid. You’re now going to know which fraternities infamously serve less-than-trustworthy cocktails. You’re not going to be swindled again by the religious convent disguised as a house party. You’re going to know to stay away from that one place on Second because the pansexual guy who lives there regularly gets blacked out and insists on giving creepy backrubs to everyone present. Gone are the days of aimlessly traipsing through the streets for forty-five minutes; you’ve figured out campus, you can utilize your real-life social network, and you can now minimize the amount of aimless, sobering wandering.
#2—Cold Weather: It’s all a matter of perspective. Given, winter brings icy sidewalks, frosty walks to parties, and slushy mixtures of filthy snow that leaves everything wet in a non-erotic way. Conversely, those slick walkways often lead to hilarious bicycle wipeouts and the frigidly horrible temperatures effectively deter the mobs of random strangers from showing up anonymously at parties. Gone are the days of Welcome Week I, where pushing through the endless swarm of freshman dudes reeking of desperation, sweat, and body spray to fill your cup at the lone keg was the only option for inducing drunkenness. Party hosts in the winter tend to overbuy for their events, as they optimistically assume everyone will brave the blizzard/snowstorm/miserable winter wonderland to get there, so, naturally, they’re generally left with a surplus of booze. Luckily, you’re no weak-willed wannabe alcoholic; your constitution for alcoholism is strong and you’ll valiantly traverse the frozen tundra for the promise of excess drinks while being sure to utilize the full potential your jacket yields for transporting multiple road beers.
#3—You Always Have the Weather Excuse: Revel in it; it’s the other side of the glorious cold-weather coin. Any situation, person, or person named Situation can be avoided by the simple and effective “it’s just too cold out there today” justification. Of course you’ll weather the elements to reach an awesome party, but you’re quick to whip this out when something objectionable arises. So when your drug-dealing, fume-huffing, rancid-odor-harboring hippie friend tells you about the party they’re throwing where everyone dresses up like Garfield, you can just use the weather as your excuse for not going. The cold is relatable, omnipresent, and horrible, so the line is a guarantee to work every time and to get you out of boring, non-orgasm-inducing social obligations.
Embrace it; the sequel is almost here and, like Godfather II, Spiderman 2, or The Dark Knight, Welcome Week II is better than the original.
Justin Gawel is an adult baby from Michigan whose articles appear on BroBible most Thursdays. Look for more of his writing, his BroBible.com archive, and his updates at www.justingawel.com or follow him @justingawel on Twitter.
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