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2003-09-16 - 6:55 a.m.

From Independent Tomboy To Sorority Girl

Once upon a time I was Greek.

My ancestors are not Greek; I’m a Heinz 57, typical of the American melting pot. A little bit French, a dollop of German, some English, but no Greek in the mix. It was my sophomore year in college that I added Greek to my ethnic heritage.

I joined the campus Greek community, accepting the vow of lifelong friendship and new and extended family—it had to be family, all the girls flounced around with their chosen “sisters”—that is alleged to be Greek life. My friend G and I rushed, were offered bids, formal invitations to join the group, (a fact that, today, shocks the hell out of us) and pledged a sorority. The day we entered into the sacred society was the death blow to the noble women of the organization.

Before having to carry out our little sister pledge obligations life was pleasant and copacetic with our new college family, but we realized, after only a few weeks into pledge season, “Going Greek” was turning into something entirely different than what it claimed to be. Our once attentive and sweet older sisters were morphing into contrived, haughty, highfalutin chicks, and we were not only expected to conform to the holy sorority doctrine, we were also to be slaves to the active members.

Had we gone into rush—a heady time of being wined and dined and courted--with anything but our eyes wide shut and our heads shoved up our arses we would’ve seen the reality behind the sugary façade. We also would’ve known we were about to join a coven representing everything we didn’t believe in. A teaspoon of simple common sense would’ve been a smack-upside-the-head wake up call and we would’ve withdrawn our candidacy for sisterhood. Instead, we foolishly entered the sanctity of the high and mighty thinking we had added another dimension of lighthearted fun to our college careers.

Once we realized our mistake, we were not going to be intimidated by secret handshakes, slave days, pearl and diamond pendants, fraternity socials, midnight marches and hazings and a multitude of other preposterous secret rituals. We came for fun, and fun we would have, and we wouldn’t keep our fun to ourselves. We changed their docile, puppy-dog pledge class into an unruly, runaway Doberman.

The active members were left with egg on their face--and sore fingers following a morning of unexpected scrubbing--the Saturday morning the pledge class was a no-show to scour the Student Union steps with toothbrushes. When we failed to arrive at the Tau Kappa Epsilon house for a day of swabbing down the pesthole, their level of tolerance went to combustible, and when we switched all their underwear drawers in the Pan Hell dorm, the crotchety ladies arrived red-faced and unfashionably late to a sorority-frat social event. While they had searched hundreds of rooms in a four-story dormitory for their skivvies, the lowly pledge class enjoyed the camaraderie and ice cold keg beer at the frat party.

The only midnight hazing they planned for our pledge class was the last hazing planned for us. Herding us along on a three-mile walk, a sister would frequently slap a pledge on the back of the thighs, hoping the cattle drive would move along at a faster pace. After a half dozen paddle whacks into the walk the big sisters were relieved of their paddles and the cattle stampeded.

The reigning duchess and her royal court doled out reprimands and discipline for these (and many other) infractions of the sacredness of the sorority, but no matter how much the grand poopahs tried to shame and shape us into the model sorority chicks, our individuality and spirit remained intact. By the end of our sophomore year G and I clearly saw the error of our ways and said good riddance to our Greek legacy.

In the years since our sorority days, neither G nor I can remember the consecrated—and ultra secret—hand shake, but we do remember our own not-so-secret and oh-so-holy salute: “Take this, sister,” accompanied by an upraised middle finger.

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