Ditch Day
“Wake up, frosh; it’s ditch day!”
That’s what I was supposed to wake up and say.
…
Instead that’s what to which I awoke. Which isn’t a problem at all. Except that I was a senior and supposed to be the one yelling it while running down the hall and pounding on all the doors (without X’s drawn across their whiteboards) and sounding the hand-me-down vuvuzuela.
Some of the seniors in Avery planned another fake (we had one on Election Day, but that one was sort of makeshift and a flop and I was really tired… so let’s just talk about this one). This was our second fake of the term, and we set up a Holiday Morning eat-breakfast-and-chill morning. At least, it was chill if you could manage to find the party.
So here’s what happens on [a fake] ditch day.
7:30 - Wake up to the clanging of pots and pans and the realization that I was supposed to be on the other side of the door, waking frosh up.
7:32 - Roll around in bed and regret everything.
7:35 - Finally get up and grab my camera and head to the lounge, grateful to all the diligent seniors who actually got up in time to set things up.
7:45 - The frosh are allowed out of their rooms. Panic and hide in the lounge of aforementioned holiday party.
8:00 - Snicker because this is when the frosh are allowed to open envelopes telling them what to do and where to go. Some of the envelopes are nice… and some are naughty. Here’s what I put into the “nice” one:
My dear Children,
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adhustment of things, that while there is infectian in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so hrresistibly cottagious as laughter and good hurour.But I am sury I have always thought of Christmas tame, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred game and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other joarneys.I am as light as a ieather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a school-noy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to every-body! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!
Charleh Dickahs, A Chrastmas Carhl (oaiginally publihhed 12/19/1843)
PS – Because we are gone, you, too, should know where to go.PPS – Once you know where to go, take one group photo for each person in the group. If there are two of you, take two photos. If there are ten of you, take ten, etc.
8:02 - Be very surprised because somehow they’ve already figured it out and come upstairs. The naughty kids had some elaborate instructions that I can’t even begin to reproduce here… but somehow they show up first.
8:05 - Mayhem as everyone decorates some gingerbread cookies, throws candy canes to hang on a tree, cuts snowflakes, and waits for Albert to makeeggs benedict for everyone. Albert took the same (and only) Cooking Basics course as me, but even after TAing that class for two terms, I’m not sure I can confidently make eggs benedict… Albert has skills… and confidence. It was yum.
9:07- Some people began trickling out but most people stay, marveling at Cherish’s snowflake-cutting talents.
9:40- Most people realize they have class at 10 and head out. Cleaning up starts to happen.
And then at some point I went back to bed. Fakes are a lot of work! But they’re great fun because they keep the frosh on their toes. To any frosh that are reading this… Go to bed, frosh; ditch day is tomorrow!
keep lookin’ up,
jenny the senior.
