“Please don’t be porn, please don’t be porn,” I whisper to myself as I await my recently opened laptop’s screen to illuminate in lecture. A video from Youtube fills the monitor; a four-minute compilation of dogs acting like humans.
“Could have been worse,” I remind myself as I look around to see if anyone saw, while simultaneously lowering the brightness on my laptop to the lowest setting.
As class ends, my weekend begins, and with that, comes the rush of excitement of attending a local bar’s drink special, "Friday After Class."
It’s now 4:30PM and I make a mental note to cherish this exact moment as I take a sip of my Upland Wheat Ale on a rooftop in Bloomington. With the sun beginning to set over the beauty that is Indiana University, I use this time to appreciate that this is my senior year; the last chapter of the low-grossing, critically panned novel of my college experience.
To keep from falling into a deep depression, I divert my attention to conversing with the women around:
“Hey, what’s up?” I ask a friendly looking sorority member.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry, but I was literally just about to head to the bathroom.”
“Hey, this weather is something else, right?” I ask another sorority member.
“Wow, bad timing, my friend has to go to the bathroom, and we like sticking together."
“Hey, didn’t we have a class together sophomore year?” I knowingly ask a member who I've discussed this subject before with.
“Bathroom."
I found it to be quite odd that every woman I talked to had to go to the bathroom the exact moment I started a conversation. But hey, maybe it’s some superpower that I have been blessed with?
With friend group after friend group leaving the pregame, the number of people at the venue begins to dwindle. It isn’t until I go downstairs from the rooftop that I realize that I’m the only one left at the pregame.
It is at this point where I began to embrace my inner Steven Glansberg and prepare to make the trek alone, when suddenly I heard one of the chronically bladder-filled women exit a nearby bathroom.
My eyes light up as hers roll.
“Walking buddies!” I exclaim as she glues her face to her phone.
We spend most of the walk at a pace that would make a mall-walker rethink their approach to exercising.
Though, as we approach the bar, a man politely asking for change from a street curb grabs both of our attention. My initial reaction is to keep walking, but the woman I’m with stops in front of him as she digs into her purse. She hands him a wrinkled $5 dollar bill as a smile appears on his face.
“That was super nice of you,” I express as we enter the line in front of the establishment.
“He needs it more than I do.”
I nod.
“And now, you get to buy my first drink,” she follows up with.
“Well, I’m going to need to speak with my accountant before we can agree on anything,” I wittily respond.
The response doesn’t generate the knee-slapping reaction I envisioned, but the small smirk will do.
The rest of the warm night was filled with enjoyment. Consisting of a long string of small moments, the evening made for another great experience during my final lap.
Like one’s time at Indiana University, the night flew by without realizing, but I remember zoning back in during a midnight, bar-wide sing-a-long to some classic pop anthem. I forget which tune it was, and to be honest, I remember thinking it was incredibly corny. Though, the insecurity quickly passed as I let my guard down and joined the embracing mass during my final minutes of being out in Bloomington.
