Last Friday I took a trip to Massachusetts for an early Halloween celebration at Hampshire College. For years I have been inundated with stories about the incomparable “Trip of Treat” brouhaha filled with mad scientists giving out drugs on request, free beer and liquor supplied by the school, and thousands of hooligans running around the campus endlessly hallucinating. Clearly, these rumors intrigued me.
Once Little Bo-Peep and I had changed into our costumes and applied our seventeenth layer of make-up, we decided to see where the booze was. This is when reality dreadfully set in. There was nothing to drink. Sure, water-fountains were abundant, but the most alcohol I saw was the empty bottle of cheap rum in the first “mod” I entered. (At Hampshire, the term “module” is what the rest of America knows as dormitory). We figured our best bet was to check out the “Top 40” dance tent.
Upon entering the makeshift dancehall, I realized something seemed off. Besides the fact that the deejay managed to play the worst possible rap hits of 2004, and that the dancing maniacs were scantily clad in silly costumes, there was something else. Then that something caught my eye: two chicks rapidly rubbing each other. Tongues exploring so many orifices that I felt like I had stepped into a soft-core high school porn. It is in this sexual overture that the differences between UVM and Hampshire became clear to me. Though these crazy cats did not know how to drink, they certainly knew their way around the human body. It seemed like wild orgies were the pinnacle of their rebellion, though.
At UVM we find reason to riot in everyday happenings. How about lighting couches on fire because a baseball team won? This rambunctious attitude is completely absent at Hampshire; passivity appears to be the key to success. Picture this: nobody locks bikes up anywhere. Here in sweet, safe Burlington, bike chains are cut on a daily basis. Somehow this free-spirit trust-tree made me nervous. It was too surreal.
At UVM I know a successful night when I finally hit my pillow in the wee hours of the morning. At Hampshire on the other hand, even on their most celebrated event of the year, all lights were out by two o’clock in the morning. Ironically, the only people I saw awake after that were other Burlington visitors. Now, I must give Hampshire credit where credit is due. While a Vermont student may stay up till sunrise to smoke a joint before passing out and drooling, a Hampshire student checks out long before then because he knows it is time to get down and dirty in some else’s living room.
Yes, that’s right, there’s no need for nudity and privacy to go hand in hand; at Hampshire sharing is caring. The bottom line is that Hampshire Halloween is certainly not what people have been lying to you about all these years. What they didn’t tell you however, is that you will witness more girl on girl, guy on guy, and girl on guy action than any Howard Stern show has ever been allowed to broadcast.
