Fountain Story

My undergraduate institution has numerous traditions. One of them is at freshman orientation everyone kicks off their sandals and walks through a fountain in the middle of campus towards the undergraduate library, upon graduation you're supposed to walk through the fountain towards the graduate school building.

After I graduated I spent a week in a drunk stuppor and pretending to be packing to move home. As such, I was far too busy to find time to walk through the fountain. The next time I went to visit campus was Labor Weekend. I had just finished my first week of law school and was determined to kick back and relax (Read: Drink alcohol until I passed out). So I hung out with some friends, drank like it was my job, and somewhere just after dark got the brilliant idea that I should go walk through the fountain, as a means to making my entrance to professional school official. I enlisted to 2 friends to come with me and with that we were on our way.

Now, any given day partying at my alma mater by dark it's nearly a given that I'll be 3 sheets to the wind, this particular day, however, I was about 5 sheets. I stumbled my way across campus and when we got near the fountain I began annoucing (read: screaming at the top of my lungs) "I'm an alumni!" to anyone who would listen. For some reason there were about 15 or 20 people seated around the fountain after dark which in my 3 years there I'd never seen, but never one to disappoint a crowd I announced my intention to walk through the fountain, took off my shoes, rolled my pants to my knees and climbed up onto the ledge. It was at this time that my friend Joel offered me his assistance in getting into the fountain, but being as stubborn as I am I dismissed him with my traditional "No, I got this!" and began to lower my left foot into the fountain.

The fountain, unfortunatly, was much deeper then I had remembered, and I lost my balance and began to fall. As I fell I flipped over so my friends could see the shocked look on my face as I fell in what seemed like slow motion and landed in the 18'' deep water, ending up completely soaked from head to toe.

In an attempt to save face I tried to just hop out of the fountain and run back but my friends insisted I get back in and finish my walk. So I had to hop back in, and walk through the fountain, hanging my head in drunken embarassment, yet still giggling to myself about the incident.

After I finished my walk I realized I'd probably made everyone around's night so I took a bow, announced one last time "Thank You, I'm an alumni" and began the walk back leaving a trail of water and holding up my pants since the weight of the water was pulling them down.

Never one to let a little accident such as that ruin my evening, I changed my clothes and forced my friend to drive me to meijer for some reason, and proceeded to walk around the store and eat gardetto's with soaking wet hair.