The eye-opening, lodge-creeping phenomenon

I have discovered a newfound weekend hobby: being sober in a room full of sloppily drunken people. Well, I suppose it could be a hobby or a sport depending on how involved you get in the process.

If you choose to simply observe drunk people from your car while sitting in the lodge parking lot, then I would say it's a hobby. But if you find yourself physically holding up stumbling drunks, I would consider it a sport or even a workout.

Actually, yeah, let's just go ahead and call it a workout because it makes me feel better about not having gone to the gym this weekend.

Since becoming a boring hermit who sits in her frump- den apartment all night long watching "True Blood" and perusing Target looking for 99-cent mini products in the travel-size aisle because I think they are cute and endearing, I have been in search of weekend activities that are entertaining, eventful and do not require me to take off my yoga pants. I found one.

Because my apartment mate and I were metaphorically smacked in the face by the plague that seems to be taking down Richmond students one sore throat at a time, we opted not to go out on Saturday in one last-ditch effort to save our health, our livers and our dignity.

Instead, we watched five episodes of "True Blood," went to Sheetz to get super-carbonated fountain sodas, stopped by Target and seriously contemplated buying a belly dance workout video and even considered bowling.

But, ultimately we ended up in the lodge parking lot watching drunk girls in a variety of slutty costumes stumbling around and being followed by equally drunk boys trying to hook up with them, or at least go for a dance floor boob-grab during a particularly steamy dance session (and by "steamy dance session" I mean the uncoordinated flailing, body-part grinding and accidental elbowing in the face that seems to occur at the lodges).

I will take a brief moment to digress a bit and share how astounded I am by the sheer number of slutty costumes around. I always thought Halloween was about the slutty cowgirl or the slutty nurse or Santa's naughty little helper, but as it seems, anything can be made slutty these days -- slutty Smurf, slutty piece of brick, slutty "Return of the Jedi" character (I'm not sure when R2D2 became a symbol of sex appeal, but even "Star Wars" is skanky these days! Is there nothing sacred?).

OK, back to my point. So following that eye-opening, lodge-creeping activity, I found myself yet again completely sober in a room full of drunk people who were attempting to make a drunk snack.

Now you all know how hungry you are when you come back from the lodges, and in this moment of hunger you never think to yourself, "Oh, let me get something out of the pantry to snack on," something safe like chips, or honey-roasted peanuts or cereal.

You think about pasta, or pizza or a grilled cheese sandwich. Note that all of these things seem to involve turning on heat-producing devices and cooking. Watching drunk people try to cook is literally one of the most entertaining things around.

When you're drunk, it always seems like a great idea to put something in the oven and then go to sleep, or to let the water boil over the bowl and just watch it in amazement as the smoke alarm goes off and the kid next to you uses it as a fist-pump beat.

Moral of the story: If you don't feel like drinking, wearing pants with buttons and zippers or having to put a lot of effort into your hair, find out where the biggest party will be taking place, wait about two hours for people to start filtering out, make a bowl of popcorn, find a place to sit and enjoy the debauchery.

People will think you're strange, but in the morning, when they're wondering what they did during their black-out hours, you'll be the almighty keeper of the stories. Feel free to exaggerate how embarrassing they were, too. They'll never know.