Last year, the lovely ladies of suite 310 Alice Cook House had a list of tasks to accomplish before the end of the semester. The list had items ranging from sex in the stacks and streaking through the Arts Quad (straight of the 161 List, but necessary for any collegiate to-do list, or so we thought) to showering in the boy’s bathroom and carrying around a grapefruit for 48 consecutive hours, (I named my grapefruit Gilbert). The list was full of embarrassing items as well as ones aimed at self-improvement (being able to complete 5 consecutive pull ups was one of them). But, of course, the embarrassing ones were the most fun to do, and that is how I ended up walking to my first class of the day audibly singing along to my iPod. Chyeahhh.
We all have caught ourselves singing along to the powerful words of Justin Bieber (totally kidding… but really, I need somebody to loveeee) when on the radio or have been caught jamming out to a little N’Sync while getting dressed in the mornings. There are some of us who have even been heard to blurt out a word of two of whatever song we are listening to when intensely going at it on the elliptical, but who busts out raps like Snoop when walking to their 10:10? Not a lot of us, I’ll tell you that.
Last March, as I swallowed my last ounce of dignity (the rest had been lost on earlier bets and list items that I naively chose to complete), I prepared my playlist for my walk of doom up the slope.
To ensure that I was really going to sing along to my iPod and that I was going to do it the whole way to class, my roommate Siobhan walked up with me… but five feet behind so that no one would think that she was with that freak who was singing “Ride With Me.”
The first part of the walk was alright… embarrassing, sure, but I didn’t see anyone I knew, so who cared if I looked like a tool (okay, let’s be real… I looked like the whole damn tool shed)? But then as I started to master (that is, fumbled over myself while attempting) the slope, my breathing got heavier and the words were more disjointed. Now, not only did I look like I might be socially inept, but I also looked like I was socially out of shape. Great.
About two minutes into “Party In The USA,” I couldn’t handle the stares that I could only assume that I was getting so I tried to soften my voice. However if Siobhan couldn’t hear me, then it didn’t count. And I had to get the item checked off my list, dammit! So I kept at it and finally, as we reached the Arts Quad and I regained my breath, I prepared to belt out my last song: “Replay” (because what’s a playlist with a little Iyaz?).
I opened the door to McGraw and finally stopped singing. Thinking that the worst was behind me (I’d already spent the last ten minutes singing along to my iPod while walking to class, could my day really get any worse?), I walked up the stairs to my class only to be joined minutes later by the cutest guy in class. He entered the room with a smirk on his face and then looked at me (my heart actually might have stopped for a second or two – I mean… he looked RIGHT AT ME) and said “so, I heard shawty’s like a melody.”
And then a little part of me actually died. There’s no recovering from that kind of embarrassment. All I could think to say was “yeah… it’s pretty catchy…glad you noticed…”
Please, ladies and gentlemen, don’t sing along to your iPods unless your tolerance for embarrassment is excruciatingly high. There’s just no way to make it seem cool. But, for those of you cruel enough to do so, if you find any friends that can’t say no to a bet, instead of wagering your hard earned money from countless hours of anatomy tutoring (yeah… you know what that means), you should make the loser walk to their first class of the day while audibly singing along to their iPod.
Original Author: Hazel Gunapala