1998

Well, it's been a few years since we left High School Panek. Clearly, he's put on a little weight!

I was pretty anxious to get out on my own, and once I realized that I didn't HAVE to go to class, could eat whatever and whenever I wanted, smoke cigarettes to my heart's content, and could just waltz into any party in town as long as I had a few bucks for the keg (I didn't even need to be on the "invite list!"), the world was my buffet.

I was a fairly mixed-up young man when I first arrived on campus- still smarting from the end of my first real relationship (she was a Brazilian exchange student, yet I thought it would somehow work out...I wasn't necessarily very bright back then). I was all set to play for the lacrosse team- I'd met with the coach during an earlier campus visit, and even made the "freshman players to watch" section of the team's program- but made a spur of the moment decision to play rugby instead. After all, rugby didn't have mandatory study hall, and one of the coaches was a co-owner of a bar downtown at which the team was occasionally treated to free beer, and that was all I needed to hear. Giddy up!

I ended up having a great time playing rugby freshman year, but ultimately got injured, had back surgery, and hung up my cleats for good. It was just as well, though, since I probably packed in a lifetime's worth of male nudity into that one year (once you've seen one "zulu warrior" or "butt chug", you don't really need to see one ever again). Besides, with no sports or physical activity of any kind holding me back, I was able to focus all of my efforts on the art of college drinking.

I met my group of good college friends- who are still my good friends to this day- toward the end of freshman year. I think we became friends so easily because, for the most part, we all looked at college the same way-the one time in life where we could party constantly with little to no consequences. We weren't really interested in doing much else- I mean, what was the point? We were all smart enough to pass our courses (with the occasional slip-up), and nothing else ever really seemed like as good of an idea as getting together, going to a party or gathering in somebody's dorm, and drinking until the sun came up.

When we got together, our drinking took on something of a mob mentality, and was usually quite legendary. As former moderately successful high school athletes, we tended to fill the void left by sports by getting REALLY competitive with drinking games, sometimes with hysterical or violent results. I met my friend Whitey when we stumbled out of different rooms at a dorm party and he yelled "I bet I can bong a beer faster than you, you pussy!" Our excessive, awesome partying- which occasionally featured crowd surfing and screaming Bon Jovi songs rewritten to feature the word "beer" 57 times- ultimately drove our head RA to resign from her post, which was something in which we took extreme pride.

By the time I moved off campus, the moderately svelte High School Panek was no more, replaced by the 260+ pounds of chewed bubble gum you see at the top of the page. I smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day, made sure the delivery guys at JD's Subs and Pizza had plenty of walking around money, and drank a solid 3-4 nights a week. Looks pretty bad out there in print, but hey- I was young, and I gotta tell you, getting that big was really fun (a lot more fun than losing the weight, that's for damn sure).

Our place was something of an "animal house"; the floors were slanted, the backyard was unkempt,and the back porch seemed to be held together with duct tape and chicken wire. This was before any of us set foot on the property. Ultimately, we ended up with a hole in the wall that was filled with meat (long story).

Regardless of our home's deplorable condition, we ended up with a pretty great party house, which was definitely helpful for me, being a chunky young lad, in my pursuit of the ladies (the fact that we served lots of alcohol helped too). The first week of school, we had a party that made the front page of the local paper, got about 20 of us cited for underage drinking, and took 7 police cars to disperse roughly 200 people. The local police weren't terribly fond of us, so we eventually took turns answering the door, with those of us who were most recently cited filing out with the crowd.

Our drinking prowess only grew as the years went on. We probably hit our absolute peak junior year, when we would each indulge in a "pre-game fifth" of Jim Beam BEFORE going out for the night. A local mini-mart sold 64 ounce bottles of Olde English and Private Stock (since discontinued), which we sometimes drank in place of the "pre-game fifth". Again, writing that out make it seem even more absurd, but it's what we actually did.

Looking back on my 4 years of college, I don't really have any regrets. Could I have been slimmer? Sure. Could I have given up smoking? I guess. But the fact that I was able to make friends with some of the greatest people on the planet by living that lifestyle made it worth every unsightly pound I ultimately had to shed and the cold sweats I ultimately had to endure by quitting smoking.

Plus, I wouldn't have seen (or heard second hand through my roomates) some of the ridiculous things I'm about to share with you:

-My buddy Zack, a gentleman who turned into the Incredible Hulk when drinking, once ripped a toilet out of the dorm bathroom after the Giants and Redskins tied 7-7, dragged it to the room where everyone was drinking, peed in it, and was arrested about 15 minutes later.

-Someone who may or may not be me, while being arrested by a large female police officer for being intoxicated in public, informed said officer that she couldn't catch me unless I had a doughnut taped to my back, and that she was "Go' have to take me!"

-Watched my roommate Seth get hogtied and tossed into a police car...on his birthday

-Zack, handcuffed to a keg, broke free from the cuffs to pimp slap Master Mike for pouring beer on him

-Jason's room in our senior year house, which had heating vents made from Chips Ahoy boxes (in retrospect, not necesssarily the safest choice), had a wall made of a large wooden plank. We learned that we could, with a running start, jump through it into his bedroom. We each did it at least once, much to Jason's dismay, including some of our girlfriends. We wanted to convince his parents to do it at our graduation...but got too drunk.

-After being caught by the head RA on the porch of Jefferson Hall, drinking 40's of OE (shirtless) on a couch we dragged outside, Whitey and I proceeded to spend 30 minutes in his office trying to convince him that we weren't doing anything wrong and that he should "just look the other way". Whitey still has a copy of the incident report (if you read this, send me a scanned copy!)

There are a lot more, some of which I recall and some which I do not. If you went to school with me, feel free to share!