The Naked Lap

POSTED BY: Bowzer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About a month ago, I had the pleasure of going back to visit my alma mater, James Madison University. Now I’m not exactly sure what older alumni do when they return to their old college campus. Take a walking tour of the grounds, point out to their kids which dorm they lived in, have a meal in the dining hall for old time’s sake, and maybe if they’re feeling randy, a stop at that favorite pub for a few pints in the evening. When you’re in your mid-twenties like me, however, the standard operating procedure is to dive right in just like it was senior year all over again. I’m young enough to still blend in with the college students at parties, avoiding the label of “that old ass dude” that is undoubtedly present at every keg party. At the same time though, I am old enough to utilize my superior wisdom and experience to theoretically make a killing on the coeds. What I found in my most recent visit back to good old JMU, however, was that I was going to commit an error that shrunk me to back to the status of a lowly freshman in one fell swoop.

It was an unseasonably warm Friday night in September, and we were pregaming at one of our buddies’ place before heading out to the house party circuit in Harrisonburg. While I was in school, I had always prided myself on being a pretty good beer pong player. In lieu of mentioning my hall of fame beer pong moments from my glory days as an undergrad (real or imagined), we’ll just say that I was a player that could always hold his own on the table. Now a common rule of beer pong is that if you get skunked (you lose the game without sinking a single cup), you and your partner have to do a naked lap around the house or apartment building. 

The naked lap rule is something that was invented many years ago by a bunch of dudes over a case of Natty Light who realized that the world needed yet another excuse for drunk girls to take their clothes off at a party. The naked lap rule is kind of like sleeping with a fat girl. You think it will never happen to you, and you will ridicule others for it to no end given the chance. Then one morning, you’ll wake up with that unusually piercing hangover and roll over to find that Shamu has somehow escaped from Sea World and has sought refuge in your bedroom. Having to run a naked lap is just as demoralizing and embarrassing as having to make sure the girl you brought home last night stays wet until you drop her back off at the ocean in the morning.

So anyway, my beer pong partner that evening was a good friend of mine by the name of T-Bone, another traditionally solid pong player. As you may have guessed by now, by some act of God we get skunked and are immediately called upon to run the naked lap. Now let me set the stage for you: we are at a gathering of about 25 people, equally split between guys and girls. I only know about a quarter of the people there, and there were plenty of cute girls that I had yet to meet. 

My first reaction was to just completely ignore this request for a naked lap, employing the “stay very still and quiet so the T-Rex doesn’t see rip your face off” strategy. I tried to downplay the situation as much as possible, and even slipped outside to “make a phone call” to buy myself some more time. Apparently, I completely underestimated the people’s demand to see me naked. I walk back inside and what started out with three guys demanding me to own up had now grown to every person looking right at me waiting for me to drop trough. My reluctance to do it was only made worse by my beer pong partner’s complete willingness and excitement about running the naked lap. After realizing that I was only making things worse by delaying the inevitable, I agree upon the condition that I get to cover my manhood with my boxers which I get to hold in my hand. 

So the entire party moves to the front porch, and I immediately grow worried at the number of digital cameras that are present amongst the crowd. I slip behind the corner of the house, strip down, and start sprinting after T-Bone, who had already begun charging down the block. Camera flashes are going off, and I soon realize in my dead sprint that the townhouse is connected to other units for what seemed like a half-mile. It was a long run, but I was kind of drunk, and for a moment it actually felt good. Yeah, no one wants to have to run a short marathon across a housing complex buck naked, but it was strangely liberating for a moment. That is, until reality hit me in the face.

I had turned the corner and was running down the home stretch behind the townhouses. It had rained the last couple of days, so the ground was wet and pretty muddy. When I approached the balcony of the house I started from, I immediately saw the paparazzi waiting with cameras flashing like I was Jamie Lynn Spears’ second baby bump. In the midst of a full sprint and trying to cover my face and my manhood so as to preserve a shred of my dignity when this shit ends up on facebook, I slipped and completely BIT IT in the mud on the final turn around the townhouse. Now everyone is pointing and laughing hysterically at me, where I then proceed to fall three times in a row in the mud. Like a cartoon character whose legs are moving to fast for its body, I couldn’t find traction in the wet mud. Amongst loud shouts and laughter, I finally made it to the front of the house, naked lap complete. This was somehow not, however, the end of my embarrassment. 

I’m standing on the front porch in my boxers, completely covered in mud and unable to come inside without covering the house in mud. Except now everyone has gone back to drinking and having a good time. Here I am in my underwear and covered in mud, meekly standing at the door asking someone who lives there to bring me a towel. I think it was at that moment when every girl in the house turned, looked at me, and confidently decided that there was exactly a zero percent chance that they would sleep with me. Even after escaping to the shower where I could wash off the mud and change my clothes, I noticed that on my ass I had scratches that literally could have come from a bear mauling. For the next week, the simple act of sitting in a chair caused outrageous amounts of pain and gave me a constant reminder of my utter drunken stupidity from the previous weekend.

Despite the unyielding embarrassment, the alienation of every girl within a half-mile radius, and the tough injuries I sustained, in the end the naked lap was an interesting experience. I learned that even I was capable of being skunked in a game of beer pong. I also fulfilled a rite of passage in life that I had missed out on while I was in college: getting naked and streaking in public. And until I completely lost it in the quicksand-like final turn of the naked lap, there really was a window of time where I was having a little fun. By the end of the night, however, when I was sleeping on a futon, no girl in tow and with my right butt cheek and leg searing with pain, I realized the true importance that one god damn beer pong cup can have.

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