Midnight Fishing
by Amanda Huggankiz
Until most recently I had only heard rumors. Rumors of a great exodus from Brown University every Wednesday, to a night scene said to be out of this world. It must be for all of the excitement and hype generated by the students who flock there week after week. So to understand all of the hype, I decided to go undercover and experience these students were so ravenous for. I created the identity of a freshman girl living in a Keeney Quadrangle single. It was imperative that I be in place a full week in advance so as to properly experience the hype. I sat in ENGN 9 and ECON 1 lectures alone but still overheard conversations being had all around me.
"Are you going to Fish Co. Wednesday?"
"Bitch. please you know i like to party."
"Do you have an ID?"
"Are you kidding? It's fish co."
So Fish Co. is the name of this elite hot spot. I was making progress. I continued to to go to class and move about Keeney normally in the days leading up to Wednesday. Eventually, awkward conversation was struck up between myself and a student who informed me he lived just next door and he had "seen me around". After talk of where I was from, what i was concentrating in, and what classes I was taking (all separated by long pauses during which he would look at his feet and shuffle them), he hurriedly excuses himself and slips into his room. Since he had forgot to introduce himself I have to look at his door to figure out that his name is Trafton. We exchange awkward waves over the next few days when seeing each other in the Ratty or Sci Li.
On Tuesday, I encounter him, yet again, in the V-Dub while both of us are getting drinks. Small talk continues from where the last conversation ("How are your classes? Oh yeah, Freidberg's kinda hard to follow...You think she's easy? Oh,...Me too!"). Then the magical moment I had been waiting for happens.
"So, you going to Fish Co? Me and my friends are pre-gaming in my room. If you want you can come. It's cool if not, though."
I've arrived at what I've set out to do. Wednesday night, I garb myself in a pair of heels, and shirt I decide is long enough to be a dress and set out across the hall to Trafton's. Upon my arrival, and despite having talked to him a total of 4 times, I am pulled into a bear hug by Trafton who smells of combination of cologne and Crown Rousse. He introduces me to his friends as the greatest girl at Brown and in turn introduces me to them. I promptly forget their names which will make the evening difficult as they all remembered mine. I have drinks pushed into my hand for a half hour while I talk to a tall girl about how funny it is when Hazeltine asks "Am I making sense here?". Someone near the door yells that it is time to go. At last, my moment has arrived.
During the twenty minute walk in my heels, I can only imagine what great reward would drive my fellow young women to endure this. After crossing, eight lanes of traffic that would make even the most experienced Frogger player wince, I see the luminous neon fish skeleton twinkling in the dark. After forcibly pushing ourselves to the front of the line, we hand the bouncer our ID's (Boys-their brother's expired ID, Girls-their brown ID or even credit card) and enter this hallowed establishment. What happens is immediate sensory overload. Strobes fly, a vaguely familiar techno mix of a popular song pumps through the building, and sweaty bodies are forced into uncomfortable contact. I gather my bearings and begin to take note of what seems to be important for survival in this new environment.
I take position at the back bar with the other "talkers". Here a great variety of conversations seemed to be taking place. A girl consoles a crying friend who wants to know "Why are all guys such assholes?" One young man advises a friend "Dude, I'm telling you, you are drunk. You don't want to hook up with her." A boy next to me tells a girl he has bought a drink for about the hurricane relief he helped with and how "I just wanted to help. I guess I've always just cared to much."
I am then forcibly pulled into the dance floor by a larger gentlemen with a backward hat on who leads me into the center, flips me around, and begins to grind with me. This is a genius tactic of Napoleonic brilliance, in that, being smaller, I cannot easily escape the dance floor crammed quarters leaving me with no options, but to endure. Girls around me are slowly saved by friends who dive in like hawks and pull their friends away from this "grind corner". The gentlemen left without a dance partner will often mutter "cockblock", "bitch", or something similar before returning to his friends to talk about how much he hates that girl. The song change brings Lady Gaga's 'Just Dance'. A girl next to me screams "This is my favorite song (She said the same thing when 'Don't Stop the Music' and 'Forever' came on). I stage an escape from my captor in between songs to find myself in another group of people, the "circlers".
The circlers repeatedly do laps around the club whether they be looking for a friend, (She's so drunk. Why won't she pick up her phone? I'm going to kill her.), looking for someone (I'm telling you man, I saw that hot girl with her friends over here.), or just avoiding someone (It's like every time I get to the other end of the the club and turn around, there she is again. Why won't she leave me alone?").
I leave with some of the circlers and begin the long trek back up the hill. By the time we reach the top, I am tired, have no money in my wallet, and have no idea where the people I went with are. I am told that there is a place that makes all of this pain go away, though. Jo's. My drunken mind is in heaven. I order all the food I can carry and dump it out on the nearest table. I sit with these people I've left with (I still have no idea who they are) and we talk about how lame that was and that we are never going again. I begin receiving texts from acquaintances asking where I am and if I want to "watch a movie". I ignore these and return to my room exhausted and collapse on my bed.
I wake the next morning to find the time to be 11 o clock, meaning I have slept through my classes. I am hung over, realize my credit card and driver license are missing, and still in the clothes I wore last night. Yet, I am also strangely satisfied. I take glee in telling everyone how drunk I got last night (SOOOOO drunk) This truly is a remarkable phenomenon, in that while this really should not be fun and worth the trouble. It somehow manages to make the participant feel that even if they didn't have fun last time they will likely have better luck next time.
Amanda Huggankiz is a credited professor at South Hampton Institute of Technology (SHIT) and has once met Billy Mays.
by Amanda Huggankiz
Until most recently I had only heard rumors. Rumors of a great exodus from Brown University every Wednesday, to a night scene said to be out of this world. It must be for all of the excitement and hype generated by the students who flock there week after week. So to understand all of the hype, I decided to go undercover and experience these students were so ravenous for. I created the identity of a freshman girl living in a Keeney Quadrangle single. It was imperative that I be in place a full week in advance so as to properly experience the hype. I sat in ENGN 9 and ECON 1 lectures alone but still overheard conversations being had all around me.
"Are you going to Fish Co. Wednesday?"
"Bitch. please you know i like to party."
"Do you have an ID?"
"Are you kidding? It's fish co."
So Fish Co. is the name of this elite hot spot. I was making progress. I continued to to go to class and move about Keeney normally in the days leading up to Wednesday. Eventually, awkward conversation was struck up between myself and a student who informed me he lived just next door and he had "seen me around". After talk of where I was from, what i was concentrating in, and what classes I was taking (all separated by long pauses during which he would look at his feet and shuffle them), he hurriedly excuses himself and slips into his room. Since he had forgot to introduce himself I have to look at his door to figure out that his name is Trafton. We exchange awkward waves over the next few days when seeing each other in the Ratty or Sci Li.
On Tuesday, I encounter him, yet again, in the V-Dub while both of us are getting drinks. Small talk continues from where the last conversation ("How are your classes? Oh yeah, Freidberg's kinda hard to follow...You think she's easy? Oh,...Me too!"). Then the magical moment I had been waiting for happens.
"So, you going to Fish Co? Me and my friends are pre-gaming in my room. If you want you can come. It's cool if not, though."
I've arrived at what I've set out to do. Wednesday night, I garb myself in a pair of heels, and shirt I decide is long enough to be a dress and set out across the hall to Trafton's. Upon my arrival, and despite having talked to him a total of 4 times, I am pulled into a bear hug by Trafton who smells of combination of cologne and Crown Rousse. He introduces me to his friends as the greatest girl at Brown and in turn introduces me to them. I promptly forget their names which will make the evening difficult as they all remembered mine. I have drinks pushed into my hand for a half hour while I talk to a tall girl about how funny it is when Hazeltine asks "Am I making sense here?". Someone near the door yells that it is time to go. At last, my moment has arrived.
During the twenty minute walk in my heels, I can only imagine what great reward would drive my fellow young women to endure this. After crossing, eight lanes of traffic that would make even the most experienced Frogger player wince, I see the luminous neon fish skeleton twinkling in the dark. After forcibly pushing ourselves to the front of the line, we hand the bouncer our ID's (Boys-their brother's expired ID, Girls-their brown ID or even credit card) and enter this hallowed establishment. What happens is immediate sensory overload. Strobes fly, a vaguely familiar techno mix of a popular song pumps through the building, and sweaty bodies are forced into uncomfortable contact. I gather my bearings and begin to take note of what seems to be important for survival in this new environment.
I take position at the back bar with the other "talkers". Here a great variety of conversations seemed to be taking place. A girl consoles a crying friend who wants to know "Why are all guys such assholes?" One young man advises a friend "Dude, I'm telling you, you are drunk. You don't want to hook up with her." A boy next to me tells a girl he has bought a drink for about the hurricane relief he helped with and how "I just wanted to help. I guess I've always just cared to much."
I am then forcibly pulled into the dance floor by a larger gentlemen with a backward hat on who leads me into the center, flips me around, and begins to grind with me. This is a genius tactic of Napoleonic brilliance, in that, being smaller, I cannot easily escape the dance floor crammed quarters leaving me with no options, but to endure. Girls around me are slowly saved by friends who dive in like hawks and pull their friends away from this "grind corner". The gentlemen left without a dance partner will often mutter "cockblock", "bitch", or something similar before returning to his friends to talk about how much he hates that girl. The song change brings Lady Gaga's 'Just Dance'. A girl next to me screams "This is my favorite song (She said the same thing when 'Don't Stop the Music' and 'Forever' came on). I stage an escape from my captor in between songs to find myself in another group of people, the "circlers".
The circlers repeatedly do laps around the club whether they be looking for a friend, (She's so drunk. Why won't she pick up her phone? I'm going to kill her.), looking for someone (I'm telling you man, I saw that hot girl with her friends over here.), or just avoiding someone (It's like every time I get to the other end of the the club and turn around, there she is again. Why won't she leave me alone?").
I leave with some of the circlers and begin the long trek back up the hill. By the time we reach the top, I am tired, have no money in my wallet, and have no idea where the people I went with are. I am told that there is a place that makes all of this pain go away, though. Jo's. My drunken mind is in heaven. I order all the food I can carry and dump it out on the nearest table. I sit with these people I've left with (I still have no idea who they are) and we talk about how lame that was and that we are never going again. I begin receiving texts from acquaintances asking where I am and if I want to "watch a movie". I ignore these and return to my room exhausted and collapse on my bed.
I wake the next morning to find the time to be 11 o clock, meaning I have slept through my classes. I am hung over, realize my credit card and driver license are missing, and still in the clothes I wore last night. Yet, I am also strangely satisfied. I take glee in telling everyone how drunk I got last night (SOOOOO drunk) This truly is a remarkable phenomenon, in that while this really should not be fun and worth the trouble. It somehow manages to make the participant feel that even if they didn't have fun last time they will likely have better luck next time.
Amanda Huggankiz is a credited professor at South Hampton Institute of Technology (SHIT) and has once met Billy Mays.
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