Sophomore Stories XVIII "Red Ox"

During my brief stint as a Theta Chi fraternity member, they held their annual "Red Ox" party. The frat color was red and when you write the capital Greek letters Theta Chi, it looks like OX...that's what the name means.
The Red Ox is/was a barn party which involved a barn, of which there are an abundance of in Kansas), a square dance caller, a bus charter and a large group of fraternity and sorority members...oh and alcohol.
Having no general interest in going to such a party, I delayed asking anyone (and by 'anyone' I was allowed to ask which was any member of a KU sorority) until a few days before when my pledge drill sergeant asked me about it. After a brief tirade, he told me he'd have someone set me up. Great...a blind date. That would certainly make the night more enjoyable. Jodi was her name and she was a member of Alpha Chi Omega. I made arrangements to pick her up to be at the frat house at 7pm.
Another frat boy, Ken, asked me repeatedly if I wanted him to buy me beer to bring to the Red Ox. I kept answering no and he kept persisting...finally he gave up.
At this point in my life, I was firmly entrenched in two different styles. One was a 'church' look that I donned on Sundays and when I needed to look nice. The other, which was for every other time, was the mid 90's grunge look. Flannel, torn jeans, etc. Nothing in my closet lent itself well to a square dancing party. I did borrow some boots from Dustin down the hall, but he happened to be the one student at KU whose feet were smaller than mine. In the end, I sported a flannel shirt, TUCKED IN, with jeans and brown hiking boots with no cowboy hat.
I picked up Jodi at her dorm (no immediate attraction) and we made our way over to the house where a large bus was waiting to take us to the mysterious barn. On the way over, I learned that Jodi's cousin and I sang in choir together in high school.
We arrived to blaring rock music and a well lit barn with plenty of straw and hay. Good thing I took allergy medication. I chatted with various members of the house and their dates while avoiding dancing, lucky for me noone was dancing at this point. But before you know it...
"Swing your parner round and do-si-do and turn round"
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Someone had given the mic to a square dance caller!!!
Well crap...I guess I gotta go dance now.
All in all, the dancing wasn't bad. My feet hurt in the small boots, but watching drunk people try and square dance made up for it. Although the part in the square dance where you turn and start weaving back and forth in a circle grabbing people's hands as you go by...well, I kept worrying that I would reach out to swing the next girl and she'd puke on me...never happened, thank goodness.
We take a break from the hillbilly aerobics and Jodi mentions that she'd like a beer. Now I'm thinking, 'great...I don't have any beer' so I just started looking around for some. Amazingly, I found no less than a dozen coolers filled with beer! So I just grabbed one and gave it to her. Well as the night wore on, the beer was disappearing (hence the bus transportation), and my date kept asking for it. I felt like telling her that there's plenty over there, but I kept helping myself and noone seemed to mind.
We danced another 'round' with West Virginia's version of Casey Kasem and finally it was time to go home...or at least back to the frat house...via the bus...with fifty drunk people.
Ah, what a bus ride that was...finally we make it back from Kansas' only barn to the frat house. I now have to drive a half-drunk stranger back to her dorm. It's 1am, I'm exhausted and have to get up for church at 7...so I drive Jodi home, promise to call her the next day to get her out of my car, and crash in my dorm room bringing a barn odor with me.

epilogue: A frat member I barely knew called me the next day wanting $10 for the beer I gave to Jodi, who I actually did call back and never saw or spoke to again...within a month, I had resigned my membership in Theta Chi.