The Plaid Pladd

After weeks of denial and trying to use all my Tetra points (to no avail), I think it’s finally hit me that I’ll never be coming back here and these people will never be part of my life again. The defining moment: taking The List off the wall, incomplete, and lovingly taping it into my journal. I told everyone to tell me if they happen to complete any of our so-far unmarked items so I can cross it off, but it seems unlikely that we’ll be able to #53 Start a Pyramid Scheme at Wiess. Ah, missed opportunities. Here is The List in its entirety (with amusing anecdotes where applicable and completed items crossed off):

1. Meet Beyonce
2. Go On a Cruise
3. Cheesy Pop Concert
4. Go to the Rodeo (we really have no excuse for failing this one)
5. Kool Aid Snow (for some reason we have like five tins of Kool Aid in our room, but we never got around to throwing it at each other)
6. Create New Language/Slang so as to confuse Arin Lastufka
7. Play beer golf
8. Pop psychology vid/youtube phenomenon (for awhile we thought we could create some kind of PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE BIKE video to achieve this)
9. Film Real World audition tapes
10. Drink a lot
11. Prank “the doctor” (this was code for Matt Dahlgren. In the end, we decided it was too easy. Also, he figured out it meant him. Mostly because on the paper copy “Matt Dahlgren” is written first and then crossed out)
12. Find best College Night Theme (Dirty Sparkly College Night: From Miley to Hannah)
13. Kidnap Kill Jeremy Caves (yeah, now you know the rest of the story. He escaped our plans by disappearing into the wilderness for a week)
14. Assemble breakable things for Beer Bike
15. Build a statue and then turn it around (a recurring theme on The List–and maybe my life–is trying to steal other people’s paths to glory)
16. Flyer Wiess with Instructions
17. Secret Admirer
18. Picnic in the acabowl
19. Howl at the Moon Bar
20. Let’s go to Austin!
21. Rockets Game
22. “Cause all kinds of drama”
23. Not between us
24. Find Paprika (this was Rob’s hamster from freshmen year, dramatically and secretly set free in the wilds of the IM fields. Rob still holds out hope that she is living happily amongst the squirrels, and everytime we’re walking at night and see a rabbit he shouts “Paprika!!” It’s never her.)
25. Get a squirrel in the room
26. Lounge it!
27. Act impulsively
28. Daytime drunk
29. Befriend underclassmen to be our favs
30. Get like Philshizka (in the original spelling, his name has an integral sign in it)
31. Pretend to be Sarah Tambra
32. Tie everyone together
33. Hold auditions for next BFF
34. Surpass Matt Youn
35. Mary an apparition (this was completed when, through a combination of sleepiness and poor wardrobe choice Rob mistook me for a vision of the Virgin Mary)
36. Mixed messages!!!
37. Do something to Josh? Pretend we don’t know him?
38. Harass Josh Langsfeld (I’m glad that harassing Josh Langsfeld needed two numbers)
39. Set off fireworks
40. Drive in movie
41. Be too cool for school
42. Ruin Dr. Dodds’ life (plans for this one always remained vague since he already seems so bitter and downtrodden)
43. Out do last year’s seniors
44. Pub crawl!
45. Inside joke—laugh even if it’s not funny
46. Tell stories—compulsively lie
47. Tell stories about Wiess four years ago… see above (yeah, back when Wiess was cool we had a zipline. And a tiger. And robotic butlers. You wouldn’t remember.)
48. PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE BIKE
49. If you go to cabinet… bring a bottle of wine
50. Tell BC that Christa is our favorite RA
51. Get sippy cups
52. Become 4 year olds including speech impediments
53. Start a pyramid scheme at Wiess
54. Develop glow in the dark clothing company (this was added after realizing we could corner the market on Glow-in-The-Dark Quinceanera dresses–take your pictures in front of the Mecom Fountain AT NIGHT!)
55. HOLY WAR
56. Go missionary style at Jones (I think originally this was related to the above but somehow got completed separately…?)
57. Rice basketball game
58. Rice baseball game
59. Infuriate Marianne by being friendly
60. More gifts
61. Earth Day swap—anti-earth party
62. Senior Citizens Party
63. Bring up shuffle board
64. Make holiday!
65. Miley Caroling (The Hoedown Throwdown? Now you know. Oddly, this was written on The List months before we eve knew about the Hannah Montana movie. Prophetic)
66. Pretend reality show
67. Convince someone that we are black sheep Kardashians
68. Perform séance
69. Hold auditions then perform exorcism
70. Have a servery challenge with alcohol to make signature drinks
71. Go to Kimberly M’Carver Show
72. At one dinner pretend we’re all pregnant
73. Pretend we are friends with fictional characters
74. Get a human leash
75. Send Bo dispatches from the front weekly Here’s the email I sent to Bo fulfill this:

Subject: Dispatch from the Front

Dispatch from the Front 2/10/09

Mr. President:
It is cold and foggy STOP Luckily some of us have someone to keep us warm
coughDhruvcoughFiggy STOP West Side Story has angered the Commons studiers beyond reason
STOP Revolution is in the air STOP Danger of a coup STOP Do not trust Erin Waller STOP
Damn seniors always in the OC lounge STOP Suspect them of source of rancid meat smell
STOP Recyclemania Situation Poor: Hanging up bottles in trees and pretending its art STOP
Servery graspin STOP Food rations tightening STOP Under FDR (Jack Hardcastle) this never
would have happened STOP I’m not trying to blame you but I’m just saying STOP
End of transmission

Respectfully compiled by
P. Ladd
Secretary of State

Unfortunately, Bo’s reply was just a reminder to tell everyone that cabinet would be in the WAR room that week. He didn’t really get into the spirit of things.

76. My Bloody Valentine 3D (we became briefly obsessed with the idea of seeing a Valentine’s-themed pick axe massacre movie in 3D in January, but not enough to actually pay money)
77. Walk Creepily
78. Abuse List Serv
79. Tacky Airbrush T-shirts
80. Taaka off
81. Lose newsletter job/List Serv Power
82. Play real pocket tanks
83. BINGO!!!!
84. Write new Twilight
85. Karoke
86. See a psychic
87. Steal Colleen Lamos’ Dog
88. Go see Molly and the Ringwalds
89. Go to brunch
90. Tell Charles Lena our RTV5 show ideas
91. Human Midnight Party (we were also intent on somehow playing Real Life versions of many board games for awhile, including Midnight Party, Clue, Monopoly, and Minesweeper)
92. Perform Brain Surgery on the Uglies
93. Get Prof. Gorrey to throw his iPhone
94. Have our own Wiess Day
95. Drunk Bus—Rice Shuttle!
96. Armadillo Spaghetti Pants
97. Drink on the Inner Loop—French style
98. Go to Gulf Breeze
99. Go to Swirl
100. Hannah Montana Movie! (Rob and I had a brief argument about whether this was momentous enough to be #100 on the list; I admit it: I was totally wrong)