Stranded in a Frat House and Woke up with Pink Eye

The night I got pink eye in Corvallis started as a sacred fraternity ritual and ended with me pretending to be asleep in the backseat of a rescue car so no one would realize I was contagious.

We were there for an initiation ceremony—one of those events everyone insists is holy until alcohol gets involved. Every member was required to attend, and our president decided we’d hold it at the Oregon State frat house. So we packed into cars, drove north on a Saturday morning, and convinced ourselves this was going to be a legendary weekend.

We got there around noon and immediately started playing pickup basketball, like that was the most normal way to begin a formal fraternity ceremony. The OSU guys were friendly enough. They showed us around the house, and eventually we ended up in the basement playing a 20-person game of Rage Cage. That part was genuinely fun. For a moment, it felt like we’d made the right call coming here.

Then they asked us to watch something.

They lined up, took off their shirts, and performed a bizarre song-and-dance routine where they poured beer on each other like it was some kind of ritualistic baptism. When they finished, they asked if we wanted to participate.

I declined.

A few of my fraternity brothers did not. Which meant they later put on suits for the initiation ceremony without showering. That detail becomes important only because it should have been a warning sign.

The ceremony itself went fine. Serious faces, memorized lines, the usual performance of tradition. Afterward, we took a group photo outside the house. It was right after that photo that things started to go downhill—fast.

We tried to integrate ourselves with the OSU guys, but the vibe just wasn’t there. The energy was flat. People stood around drinking without talking. Music played, but no one knew the lyrics to any of the songs. And music is the most important part of a party—if you can’t sing along, what are we even doing?

We had driven all this way, and they couldn’t even pull girls for us.

So we drank more. Some people smoked. Anything to compensate for the absence of fun.

Later that night, the OSU guys showed us what they were clearly proud of: a storage room filled with stolen signs from the University of Oregon.

That’s when everything snapped.

Without discussion, without planning, we collectively decided this was unacceptable. If they were stealing our signs, we were stealing theirs. The logic was airtight. The execution would not be.

Matt and I sprinted toward campus, fully committed to bad decisions. We found a sign that was obviously cemented into the ground. I don’t know why our drunk brains thought we could pull it out, but we tried anyway. We slipped, struggled, and completely muddied our shoes.

Then a cop car drove by.

I immediately ditched Matt and ran straight into the library, tracking mud everywhere like a cartoon criminal. There was nothing worth stealing in the library, so I just kept wandering around campus in the dark. I couldn’t go back empty-handed. That felt worse than getting arrested.

Eventually, I stumbled into a cafeteria and discovered a bowling alley downstairs. Cosmic bowling. Black lights. No one working the desk. I played a free game like it was a reward for surviving the night.

On my way to the bathroom, I saw something I wish I hadn’t.

A John Belushi Animal House poster.

At Oregon State.

Anyone with a basic understanding of cinema knows Animal House was filmed at the University of Oregon. That poster had absolutely no business being in an OSU bowling alley. I almost threw up in my mouth. Without hesitation, I tore it off the wall, stuffed it into my jacket, and walked out. Justice had been served.

I raced back to the frat house like I’d completed a heist. By then, everyone had the late-night munchies, so we piled into cars and went to University Calzone. It was basically a second-rate version of The Dough Co.—which, if you know Eugene, is elite.

I sat next to Sam, watching him feverishly swipe right on Tinder, desperately trying to find free lodging. On the walk back, we threw glass bottles into the street and shouted, “Sco Ducks!” The food soaked up some of the alcohol, and a few of us started to sober up.

That’s when it hit us.

Staying the night wasn’t happening.

Eugene was 50 minutes away. Our beds were 50 minutes away. And since some drivers had already left, there weren’t enough cars for everyone. Panic erupted. It felt like I was on the Titanic, scanning for lifeboats. Some people escaped. Others didn’t.

The guy who drove me to Corvallis had dipped out at 9 p.m. I was stranded.

I was so jacked up on sugar that I couldn’t sleep. I remember rocking back and forth on a tree swing outside, thinking about how bad my life choices were. Eventually, I tried sleeping on the couch, but it was covered in dog hair. So I slept on the floor.

The next morning, I woke up around 8 a.m. and couldn’t open my right eye.

I stumbled into the bathroom and started rinsing it. The crust slowly turned into goop. It was pink eye. Highly contagious.

A rescue car was scheduled to pick up the remaining survivors at 9 a.m. There was no universe where I wasn’t getting in that car. So I covered my face, leaned against the window, and pretended to sleep the entire ride home.

No one woke me.
No one asked questions.

And that’s how a sacred fraternity ritual ended—with conjunctivitis, stolen art, and plausible deniability.