As I’ve mentioned ad nauseum in this column, I was in a fraternity during college.  Greek life.  For the uninitiated, fraternities are blessings from blue-eyed, blonde-haired baby Jesus, collections of young men hungry for beer, pool, video games, and sorority tah-tahs.  I was a Fiji, which meant I was too smart to have anything to talk about with the cro-magnons at the Beta or Sigma Chi houses, but cool enough not to hang out with the Farmers or AGR.  My pledge class was known as the Upsilons and we were a collection of misfits, malcontents, and miscreants … to be kind.

There are literally hundreds of stories that I could share with you about my days in the hallowed halls of Sigma Omicron, most of which I can only shake my head at disbelief that these things actually happened.  Today, though, I’d like to tell you about the Code Red that we pulled on one of my pledge brothers.  Kyle McShitt.

Ok, so his name was not really McShitt. But it should have been.

It was a clever nickname bestowed on him via our pledge class. Quick fact – if you ever want to destroy someone by using their own insecurities as the proverbial warhammer on their own ego just recruit 20 frat boys and add a case of Natural Light.  I guarantee that this poor, dumb bastard will overdose on a handful of Paxil in just under three hours.  I’ve seen it happen multiple times.

Is it a nice thing?  No, of course not.  But neither is National Geographic.  Its natural selection, homey.  Does the lion feel bad for the zebra’s hurt feelings while he’s ripping apart its bunghole?  Its just the way things are, I guess.  The pussies are forever doomed to hide in their rooms playing the Sims while the clever and the witty play beer pong.

This kid’s last name was actually McNitt.  And … he had a intestinal disorder that meant he shit a brown slushie.  I guess before he joined the fraternity he actually had a colostomy bag.  Wallah, Kyle McShitt is born.

Actually, truth be known his real nickname cannot be phonetically written, but I’ll tell you how to say it.  Start with Kyle Mc- and then stop.  For the next part, just stick out your tongue and make the fart noise.  Much funnier to say and it provides ample opportunity for comedic embellishment on the part of the speaker.

Before I start to get comments on the insensitivity of my pledge class on McShitt’s physical ailments, let me explain. Here’s the truth about this kid – if you are a douche, a dork, then anything to make fun of you becomes fair game.  We’d never had targeted this guy so ruthlessly JUST because he squirted out his poop like a yogurt dispenser.

Case in point, there was this Chi-O that had a similar disorder.  Her name was Hat and she had most of her intestine removed as well, but the difference between her and our man Kyle was that she was cool, funny, and … normal.  Did we make fun of her about her shit bag?  No, of course not.  Ok, maybe a little.  Point is that this kid was unlikeable so all of his flaws and foibles naturally became weapons to use against him.

So in addition to a catchy nickname, McShitt was the biggest tool in the shed.  He wore socks and wing tips with his khaki shorts.  He weighed probably 85 pounds, covered in acne, and cheap hair cream.  He went home every weekend and talked for two hours each day with his mommy.  A total killjoy.  Not only that he laughed like a character on Fraggle Rock.  You know … the open mouth, head wiggle, no noise, heavy breath-out laugh common to most puppets?  He was my roommate in 3 Eta.  Every time he Fraggle laughed at some dumb joke, I wanted to squeeze his shit bag onto those loafers and punch him in the throat.

Am I a bad person?  I’m starting to think so.

This poor kid should have been home schooled.  He had zero social skills and probably an undescended testicle.  This was a kid that had never worked a day in is life, probably never been exposed sunlight, and breastfed until he was 16 years old.  Am I being cruel and merciless against Kyle?

Let me be clear, I am hardly perfect.  Not even close.  I’m a geek, proudly a nerd.  I play Dungeons & Dragons.  I read comic books.  I used to practice with num-chuks in my backyard.  I type out my FIFA 10 player statistics into an Excel spreadsheet to track their progress and prepare my substitutes.  I watch the History channel, read wikipedia, and eagerly tackle every Sudoku puzzle I come across.  I can quote any 1980s horror movie ever made.  I can explain the algorithm in which Google uses to rank order websites when you search for your Wii controllers.

Geek, right?

So here’s the rub.  In the sub-stratum of the uncool, there is a big difference between Geeks and Dorks.  Yes, Kyle was a dork.  It meant it was uncomfortable to be around him because he had no sense of humor, no insight, was flailingly dumb with only moderate book smarts, and absolutely no sense of adventure.

Pledgeship is a pressure cooker.  There are a ton of responsibilities and expectations placed upon you by the brothers.  Act right, get good grades, be nice to girls, contribute to the chapter, respect the house, etc.  These values take the form of pledge tests, house cleaning, meal service, a code of gentlemanly behavior, pledge class meetings with strict start times, etc.  If you make a mistake or fail at one of these obligations, the entire pledge class is punished as a unit.

McShitt refused to bust his ass on behalf of the pledge class.  House cleaning, tests on the values and history of our fraternity, he sucked at everything.  Even worse he refused to try harder as if it was his right to make us all suck.  Not even an apology for his fuck-ups, only a flippant “oh well.”  Just like in Full Metal Jacket, we had to cover for him in his responsibilities … and suffer as a whole when we could not cover his mistakes in time.  I think we set a record for the number of days we were in coat-n-tie.  I’m 33 years old and I still have to wear coat-n-tie every Monday to slowly repay the colossal debt we built as pledges.

Yes, Kyle was a complete dork.  By joining a fraternity, my pledge class in particular, he was essentially chopped bait thrown into shark infested waters.  Honestly, I blame the rush chairs.  They must have rushed him via MySpace or text message.  I believe that even the Chess club or Academic Bowl guys would have beat him with bars of soap after a few weeks.

The Kyle McShitt quandary came to a head when we started having socials with sororities.  In fact, we had to serenade them as a pledge class.  The Fiji Moon Is Shining.  I Would Rather Be A Fiji.  Etc.  This was a chance for us to meet the hotties that we had heard so much about.  Chi Omega, Theta, Pi Phi, KDs, and more.  Much more.  Say the names of these bastions of booty in no more than a hushed whisper.  The world was brimming with potential.  Afterall, why do you think young men join fraternities in the first place?

Unfortunately, dead center in the soprano section, front row, was the biggest dork outside of Napoleon Dynamite.  We had other geeks like me in the pledge class mixed in with our face jocks.  We had small town hicks, an Italian anarchist, a hockey goon, an ex-Army ranger, a eight foot tall red-headed giant.  A strange mix for one pledge class, but we proudly stood by each other in 100 degree heat and belted out these trite fraternity show tunes … except for that one guy in the middle that seemed to draw the horrified stares of all the girls we were supposedly wooing with our vocal prowess.

It was the breaking point.  For all of his failings, his cardinal sin was was that this tool shed was scaring off the trim for the entire pledge class.

And that was unacceptable.

Our pledge class voted a President early in our pledgeship and for some reason we chose Glock.  It musta been a Manchurian Candidate type brain washing on the whole lot of us.  Glock was a Jenks boy fixated on power, debauchery, and tyranny.  To this day, I’m not sure that he understood that he was elected pledge class president and not Overlord.  After a particularly brutal three weeks of straight 6AM study halls and coat-n-ties largely due to Gomer Kyle, I remember Glock randomly approaching me one day.

Here’s our conversation:

Glock: “Hey Chiki (my Fiji nickname … don’t ask), I think McShitter is a fucking tool.  What do you think?”

Me: “Yeah, its not good.  He’s my roommate, dude.  Do you know he folds his tightie whities?”

Glock: “Fucking tool.”

Me: “When we had girls in our room the other day, he actually drooled A&W Cream Soda down the front of his short-sleeve, plaid, button-up shirt.  I’m not kidding … a full line of drool from his mouth down to his fourth button.”

Glock: “Fucking tool.”

Me: “He goes to sleep at 8:30pm.  Every night.  Throws a little tantrum if we turn on the light.”

Glock: “Fucking tool.”

Me: “At the ice cream social with the Alpha Chi’s he actually forced himself to throw up in a garbage can because his cone had peanuts in it.  Scraped his tongue with his spoon in frantic gasps right in front of his date.”

Glock: “Fucking tool.”

Me: “Why do you ask?”

Glock: “Um … no reason.”

I didn’t think much about it at the time, because living with this guy had given me plenty to complain about to anyone that would listen.  A few days pass and I don’t think twice about our little conversation.  At our next pledge meeting, Glock glibly announces that he took care of the McShitt problem.  And presto chango – Kyle was no where to be found.  Later, our pledge educator told us that Kyle came to him sobbing like a little girl that he wanted to quit the fraternity.  And he did.

Uh oh.  What did you do, Ray?

Well, apparently Glock had the same conversation that he had with me with everyone else in the pledge class.  Secretly and individually.  And it was unanimous.  We all thought McShitt was the albatross on our sailing ship.  With this informal consensus, Glock pulled McShitt aside and had a private conference.  I can’t accurately tell you what was said that day, but I am sure that it wasn’t pretty.  Probably something along the lines of ‘We voted you out of our pledge class.  Now go fuck yourself.’

Did you order the Code Red?  You’re god damned right I did.

Of course, we were surprised and angry that such an action had been taken without a formal vote.  Despite the great suffering and woe brought upon us by this kid, there was some guilt that he was so cleanly cut from the pledge class.  And the brothers got mad that we fragged one of pledge brothers.  But at the end of all of it, I think each of us privately agreed that irrelevant of the means in which Kyle McShitt was ousted, it was the right decision.  He just was completely and totally over his head.  For me personally, it allowed BJ to fill the vacant spot in 3 Eta to be followed later by Jasko.  It was a rough start with Fiji roommates, but by the end of the year, we had a good trio.

I couldn’t even begin to speculate what Kyle McShitt is up to now.  Maybe he’s a guide for the walking tour through the digestive system exhibit.  Or maybe he’s smelling girls underwear at the laundromat when they turn their backs.  Or maybe he’s wearing high heels and lip stick holding a high powered rifle and plotting his revenge.  I have not a clue.  Thank God I live in Australia.

I’d like to tell you that this was the only time that he threw one of our fellow pledge brothers to the wolves, but I’d be lying.  Maybe someday I’ll tell you the story of Mark Hicks.  Or Tyler Ashby.  Or …