Ah, parent’s weekend, the annual chance to unveil the real you — to walk the ever-treacherous tightrope between showing the folks a good time and keeping the money coming.
If your idea of parent’s weekend involves asking your friends to hide their beers when mom and pops roll by the tailgate, read no further. If you intend to pitch an empty Natty can to your father after he’s chugged beer from a Wiffle Ball bat and spun five times, God bless you. Read on, my friend.
First on the docket: Dad. Party with him. Get him drunk. Introduce him to your friends but make sure he doesn’t hit on them. Take him to Hollywood Disco for no more, and no less, than five minutes. On Saturday, make sure he gets decorated with a few sorority stickers. By the end of the weekend, your dad should know what “roll-backs” and “rebuttals” mean, how to cut a perfect shot-gunning hole, and why Wendy’s tastes so damn good at 3 in the morning.
Mom is a very different story. Though opposite from freshmen in almost every sense, to many a fratstar, mothers possess the same indelible intrigue — the same aura of the unknown, allure of the forbidden. Disgusting? Sure. Reprehensible? Indeed. But true.
I love my mom. Do you love yours? Then don’t take her anywhere. Tell her to stay in the hotel, watch “The September Issue” on InDemand and save herself from making a terrible mistake with that boy who reminds her of “a young Paul Newman.”
If you must take her out, keep her close. Keep her (relatively) sober. Do something fun and innocent — go to Lonnie’s and sing a duet (“I Got You Babe” is a personal favorite). Don’t go to Wild Beaver. And for God’s sake, don’t let her buy a round of tequila shots for your friends.
Take my advice to heart and the next few days should go swimmingly. My favorite part of parent’s weekend is seeing the looks on my mom and dad’s faces; the looks on their faces as they relive the glory of youth, reinvent the stories of yesteryear, tear down the walls of old age and cross over into a world of cheap alcohol, dirty dancing and drunken stupors. May you too experience that pleasure.
