Here's a little story...
When I was 10 I had a fort in my backyard. When a fella has a fort, a club is soon to follow; I got myself a club. Now, as I was one of the club's founders, I had the jurisdiction to kick people out of the club without provocation. Of course, I eventually exercised my right until I was the only one in my club... and I like it that way
Time passed and somehow I had worked my way through to high school where the club of choice was the Key Club. Unfortunately, the Key Club had been firmly established long before I got there and so I had to suck up to those who had sucked up before me. I had to mind myself and act like somebody. I hated the thought that I could be banned - to suffer the same humilation as the many (2, maybe 3) who I had banned from my fort years before. Soon I was a senior and vp of the K.Club. The procedures of banning a person wasn't as simple as I thought - I mean, you couldn't just snap your fingers and he was gone - but neverless quite doable. You would simply tell the other seniors that you wanted him banned, they wouldn't care, and a lie would be concocted to present to the school's review board. Any senior could ban any underclassman for any (or no) reason. Those were our (unofficial) rules.
In college the clubs were, of course, fraternities - and the same pattern continues. Except here, the upperclassmen not only have the authority to ban (or, blackball, as was the jargon of fraternity choice) but could also beat the sh!t out of you during commercials. As a pledge, it was now especially necessary to swallow your pride, or the one-way sign that had always done a fine job of directing your a$$ traffic would be turned to face the opposite way. Years later, as a senior I would try to do a thing that, while so simple before, was now a complete pain in the ass: ban a jackass member. He was a loud-mouth sophomore and a social retard. He made the whole fraternity look bad. The problem was, he had done nothing illegal... As it happens, you can't ban a member - only a pledge - because he has paid the fraternity dues: about $3,000 a semester. So, how did we get rid of him? We just kept telling him the he's a dumb-as$, relentlessly, until he quit (or "went inactive", as it was called).
So, the moral of the story is... just because a story is long, doesn't make it good. :sign:
... also, I voted for "Leebo can blackball people", or whatever.
When I was 10 I had a fort in my backyard. When a fella has a fort, a club is soon to follow; I got myself a club. Now, as I was one of the club's founders, I had the jurisdiction to kick people out of the club without provocation. Of course, I eventually exercised my right until I was the only one in my club... and I like it that way
Time passed and somehow I had worked my way through to high school where the club of choice was the Key Club. Unfortunately, the Key Club had been firmly established long before I got there and so I had to suck up to those who had sucked up before me. I had to mind myself and act like somebody. I hated the thought that I could be banned - to suffer the same humilation as the many (2, maybe 3) who I had banned from my fort years before. Soon I was a senior and vp of the K.Club. The procedures of banning a person wasn't as simple as I thought - I mean, you couldn't just snap your fingers and he was gone - but neverless quite doable. You would simply tell the other seniors that you wanted him banned, they wouldn't care, and a lie would be concocted to present to the school's review board. Any senior could ban any underclassman for any (or no) reason. Those were our (unofficial) rules.
In college the clubs were, of course, fraternities - and the same pattern continues. Except here, the upperclassmen not only have the authority to ban (or, blackball, as was the jargon of fraternity choice) but could also beat the sh!t out of you during commercials. As a pledge, it was now especially necessary to swallow your pride, or the one-way sign that had always done a fine job of directing your a$$ traffic would be turned to face the opposite way. Years later, as a senior I would try to do a thing that, while so simple before, was now a complete pain in the ass: ban a jackass member. He was a loud-mouth sophomore and a social retard. He made the whole fraternity look bad. The problem was, he had done nothing illegal... As it happens, you can't ban a member - only a pledge - because he has paid the fraternity dues: about $3,000 a semester. So, how did we get rid of him? We just kept telling him the he's a dumb-as$, relentlessly, until he quit (or "went inactive", as it was called).
So, the moral of the story is... just because a story is long, doesn't make it good. :sign:
... also, I voted for "Leebo can blackball people", or whatever.
