Kidnapped

Okay, time to put on the brakes. What am I doing??? This blog is supposed to be a “happy place” and here I go and start turning it into some kind of personal shrine to my pathetic little miseries… To hell with that! Let’s get back to the more fun and far less depressing blog posts. I remember this one time during my senior year in college…

I was standing on the corner of I-94 and Cass Avenue waiting for my little brother, Woodstock, to pick me up and drive me home to the frat house. I had just finished work at Wayne State’s CARS (Contracts and Related Services) department and didn’t feel like walking back to the house so I figured I would take advantage of my position in the fraternity and call up a pledge to pick my lazy ass up. Woodstock (my “little brother” of the pledge class) was who I reached and I was now waiting for him to pick me up.

A little background here: I had now been a full brother in the Theta Tau Professional Engineering Fraternity for three to four years and had been living in the frat house for pretty much all of that time. Living at the house gave me a bit more visibility in the fraternity and I quickly obtained a reputation as a perfect choice for “pledge master”. I guess I was just good at giving the pledges shit… I was, however, also good at fulfilling the duties associated with being pledge master and believe (if I remember correctly) that I was given the title no fewer than three semesters during my time at the house. I was, once again, pledge master during the time that this story was occurring. Woodstock was part of the pledge class and he was lucky enough to have me designated as his “big brother”.

You see, the responsibility of a big brother is to be a kind of personal helper for his little brother throughout the pledge period. It can become a stressful experience and it’s nice to know that at least one of the brothers will be there to help a pledge when really needed. Woodstock was very lucky in that his big brother – me – was also his pledge master. It was a bit strange for me though as I was responsible for both pushing him to the breaking point (as pledge master) as well as picking him up when he fell (as big brother).

Woodstock picked me up from work and started heading back toward the house. We went driving down Cass Avenue heading toward Alexandrine Avenue – the frat house was located a couple blocks from Cass on Alexandrine. The funny thing was that, for some reason, Woodstock didn’t hang a right on Alexandrine as I was expecting; instead he continued to drive down Cass. It was then that I started to realize that we weren’t heading back to the house – I was once again being kidnapped!

Kidnapping, as it turns out, was just one of those things that was part of pledging Theta Tau. There were even rules (completely unwritten, but known by all) about kidnapping and they were pretty easy to understand: A pledge could kidnap a brother as long as the brother was alone and no other brother witnessed the kidnapping. A brother could kidnap a pledge pretty much whenever he wanted and nothing could be done to stop it other than the pledge somehow getting away. Once kidnapped, the brother (or pledge, depending on who was kidnapping who) would be left at some undisclosed location with enough money to make a phone call to the house and a six-pack of beer. The money was so that the kidnapped could call for a pick-up and the beer was for something to do while waiting for the ride. It was an interesting concept and actually wasn’t done very often – we were college students and free time was often spent studying; however kidnapping the pledge master was a great way for the pledges to assert themselves and administer some payback. I, being the pledge master time and time again, was kidnapped several times. I looked on it as a good thing – it showed that my pledges were adjusting to the frat life mentality rather well…

I looked over at Woodstock and asked where he was taking me. I then informed him that I had a test (I think it was a differential equations test but I’m not really sure … might have been physics…) the next morning and that I needed to get home to study a bit. Unfortunately, having something to do doesn’t mean much after you have been successfully kidnapped. Woodstock just told me to relax. He said that all I needed to do was cooperate (basically not try to escape) and that I would be in control over when I got dropped off. Where I got dropped off was another story – I had no control over that. I decided to cooperate. I really had no other choice…

It was then that Woodstock made a bee-line for the Windsor tunnel. He drove me to Canada! If you are not familiar with the geography around the Detroit area, Canada is right across the river. In fact, if you need a decent trivia question for sometime in the future you could always ask, “If you travel due south from Detroit, what is the first foreign country that you will encounter?” The answer, actually, is Canada.

After arriving in Windsor, Canada, it became clear to me that Woodstock was just playing this kidnapping by ear. He had no plan. He was just making it up as he went along and decided to stop in at this 7-11 type shop (I forget what the name of the convenience stores in Windsor are…). He then entered the shop and returned with a Super Big Gulp of Coke, a fifth of Southern Comfort and a Penthouse magazine. He proceeded to dump out almost all of the Coke and filled the Super Big Gulp cup with the Southern Comfort. He handed the drink to me and said that I would be dropped off as soon as I had finished drinking it. The Penthouse was for my entertainment – thoughtful, huh? I started drinking the Southern Comfort – I needed to get home…

Okay, so I really don’t remember exactly what time it was – this was something like 15 years ago – however I do know that it was late … late enough for the Windsor Airport to be closed. How I know this is because that was actually where we ended up. After I had finished drinking the Super Big Gulp of Southern Comfort, Woodstock dropped me off at a bench outside the (then closed) Windsor Airport. He walked me to a pay phone and made sure that I was able to get a ride and then left me there to fend for myself. There I was, drunk as shit, sitting on a bench outside the Windsor Airport with my Penthouse magazine waiting for Ox to arrive and take me back to the frat house.

The only things that I remember prior to blacking out are having a little discussion with a security guard that came out to see what I was doing and jumping in Ox’s truck after he finally arrived. The next clear memory that I have was waking up, about a half hour before my test was scheduled, in the loft of my room. (This seems to be a common occurrence in my stories – I’m out drinking alcohol somewhere and I inevitably "time travel" a bit and wake up in my bed. Maybe the lack of memory is what makes these stories so memorable for me…?) I quickly got out of bed, threw on some clean clothes and rushed to the university for my exam. I made it in time, but it really didn’t matter – I guess it goes without saying that I didn’t do very well on the test…

I then returned back to the frat house and cleaned the bathroom. Somebody (I’m assuming it was me) had made a mess in there the previous night and puke was pretty much everywhere! I guess slamming down a Super Big Gulp of Southern Comfort will do that to a guy… No big deal – I took responsibility and cleaned it up…

That was living at the frat house. All in all it was a good thing – rather than getting burned out with nothing but studying, we had our little amusing experiences that not only gave us interesting memories but also kept us grounded. Sure, I suppose you could argue about the stupidity of some of these experiences; however we always did our best to make sure that nobody got hurt. For instance, Woodstock made sure that a ride was coming before he left me alone. I suppose that something bad could have happened after he left and before Ox arrived, but that’s just the way life is – nothing is ever guaranteed. Sometimes it helps to be forced into an uncomfortable situation at times just to discover how you are going to cope … you might actually surprise yourself…

bis später,

Coriolis