A while back, a friend of my daughter was seriously thinking about joining a fraternity at his college and knowing that I had once belonged to one when I was his age, asked me if he could pick my brain about the experience.
“Well,” I said, “I really enjoyed being in a fraternity, except for Hell Weekend.”
“Hell Weekend? What was that?”
“Well,” I said, “I guess it wasn’t really all that bad, except for the marshmallow race.”
“Marshmallow race? Tell me about that?”
“You sure you want to know?
“Sure, I want to know!”
“Well,” I said, “on the final day of Hell Weekend, all of us pledges, and there were about twelve of us, were required to go out into this huge backyard at the fraternity house and stand next to each other in a straight line. Then one of the brothers walked over to us, handed us each one of those big jumbo marshmallows, and ordered us to put it down in front of our feet. Then the president of the fraternity, I forget his name now, strolled out into the middle of the yard and began hollering at us. `Okay, pledges,’ he yelled, `now listen up! I want each one of you to straddle your marshmallows. And when you’re done doing that, I want you to drop your pants, and your underwear, too!'”
“You had to take off your pants?”
“And our shorts, too.” I said.
“You’re kidding, man? Wasn’t everybody embarrassed?”
“Well,” I said, “some more than others.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well,” I explained, “another couple of brothers held up this long rope at the other end of the yard and yelled out that it was going to be the finish line.”
“And you’re still standing there nude, straddling a marshmallow?”
“Right,” I said. “And then the president began explaining the rules of the race.”
“Which were?”
“Well, he told us that he was going to say `Get ready, get set, go!’, and when he said go, we were all supposed to squat down, pick up the marshmallows between the cheeks of our butt, and waddle off towards the finish line. And anyone who dropped their marshmallow during the race had to go all the way back and start all over again.”
“I don’t believe you, man.”
“It’s true. And when he screamed `Go!’, we all took off waddling towards the finish line, except for this one poor guy, who couldn’t seem to pick up his marshmallow. Then another couple of guys dropped theirs and they had to go back and start all over again. Anyway, the three of them finally got back out on the course and began fighting it out for last place. To this day, I’ve never in my life seen three guys try so hard not to finish last at something. And it turned out to be a photo finish, too.”
“So why did they care who in the hell finished last?”
“Well,” I said, “you see the loser of the race was required to eat all the marshmallows. Do you still want to be in a fraternity?”
“Not that one!”