Like any guy at U.Va. bored during the first days back from Winter Break, I decided to go through sorority rush.
For the uninitiated, rush (Regiments of Uteri Singing Happily) is the process during which sororities select members for their newest class. In theory. What it eventually amounts to is all the members of the house joining hands in a circle, closing their eyes and pushing really hard until a sonic boom of estrogen robs the rational capabilities of every living thing within three square blocks.
By the time I returned to school, I was already behind. Apparently for one of the rush rounds, girls wear a black cocktail dress. Unfortunately, I lost my only black cocktail dress during a Wiles family Christmas dinner tradition -- a rousing game of "Everyone Take Off Your Black Cocktail Dress and Look Like the !@#$ Son I Raised You To Be."
After digging the blonde wig out of the closet from that time when I "was just trying something," it was off to my first round of sorority rush. With a pounding heart, I was nervous, but remained confident that my 21 years of successfully not dying had furnished me with the necessary skills to succeed.
Upon entering the first house, I was immediately informed that I "totally needed a name tag." Evidently, name tags are designed by each rushee, sporting not only their name, but images of things that are important in their lives and that, like, define them. Ten minutes later, sporting a wooden board hanging around my neck with a case of beer and a live chicken nailed to it, I was back in business.
As I moved on, I joined a long line of girls in skirts standing outside the next house. When I broke out to into a lusty version of "She Bangs," everybody wanted to know what was wrong with "the one with the hard features." When I explained that the only reason a person could possibly stand around in line doing nothing for hours in two feet of snow was "American Idol" auditions, I was severely reprimanded and automatically cut from that house without ever getting to introduce the sisters there to my chicken.
During my time in line, I noticed one girl whose progress was hampered by crutches. Realizing that sympathy points could take me a long way, I ran up and stole them from her. In addition, I yanked away another girl's Burberry scarf and fashioned myself an arm-sling. Any sorority that was going to turn away someone who looked like an escapee from an air raid on "Sex and the City" wasn't a sorority that I wanted to be a part of.
I also noticed girls giving their coats to sisters inside each door. As the rushee continued on, the sister would check the back of the coat to note its brand name. Thinking fast, I ripped a side mirror off a parked car and glued that over my coat label so any nosy sisters would be too distracted by their own makeup to worry about what kind of coat I had.
The final night of rush was called "prefs." "Prefs" is short for "preferentials." Apparently, uttering "-erentials" can leave a person sweaty and out of breath, which is just totes awk so abbrev'ing it to "prefs" is obvi legit. Prefs consist of candlelight, reflections on the sorority and a general attempt at a sisterhood séance. Unfortunately, one of the candles set my wig on fire, causing the whole room to stink and one girl to cry that this was definitely not "what my mother expected when she pulled the whole 'legacy card' to get me in here." Luckily the mood was already appropriate for everyone to sit in reflective silence and think about how tragic the whole ordeal really was.
Soon after came bid day, the day when I was going to find out which sorority chose me! I thought I was a shoo-in because I was so adept at using exclamation points on sentences that did not warrant them at all! When a group of girls came to my door, I was so excited! I was in!
I wasn't in. It turned out the girls wanted a full-time parallel parker who could free up 4.5 hours of their days to tend to more stressful sorority business, "like T-shirt workshops and the Uplifting Thought Distribution Committee." All was not lost though. If it was any consolation, they thought the fact that I opted not to shave my legs really spoke to my independence ... and stuff.
Austin's column runs biweekly Thursdays. He can be reached at awiles@cavalierdaily.com.
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