The Wake

The sun rises over campus. It’s a Sunday morning, following an evening of heavy rain. One by one they emerge. Their clothes are crumpled. Many sport what I like to call “shelf hair.” The expressions on their faces usually reflect a confusion that can only be explained by an empty bottle of vodka. They are the men and women who sacrifice themselves to that sacred act called the Walk of Shame.

What is the Walk of Shame? The Walk of Shame is defined by everybody a little differently. Most explanations involve alcohol or sex or, most often, both.

Several students around campus define it in a simple manner. Amanda Schlehlein, a third-year communication major, defines it as, “Walking past people at the end of doing something that is shameful in the eyes of others.”

The Walk of Shame makes people do very strange things. One student saw a woman lie down in a rain puddle. The student’s friends were concerned that she had fallen, but no, she had actually lain in the puddle. Another student sighted a man walking down University Avenue at 10 a.m. wearing a toga decorated with a cape and a very hungover expression. It has become a new kind of hunting season: the watch of the Walk of Shame.

I will always remember my own personal experience with the Walk of Shame. I saw a woman wearing hot pants and smeared going-out makeup tottering home on her high heels at 7 a.m. For those of you who don’t know, women generally have two kinds of makeup. Normal, everyday makeup and going-out makeup, which consists of dark eyeliner and shiny eye shadow so that men will think our eyes look smoldering.

Amanda Bartschenfeld, a first-year journalism major, probably had a similar memory when she defined the Walk of Shame. “It’s having to wake up somewhere and then having to walk home not looking your best and probably not feeling your best either,” Bartschenfeld said.

Urbandictionary.com defines the Walk of Shame in the many ways, including the following:

“After spending the night at a member of the opposite sex’s house, having to walk home in the morning looking trashy, romped and hungover. When you leave someone’s house with the same clothes you had on the night before, usually after a booty call. Whenever a female sleeps with a guy and in the morning she has to walk out of his place looking like a hoe. It is the morning after you have slept with a pig and have to leave his place and walk out and be seen by all.”

Some students greeted me with hostility or feigned confusion when talking about the Walk of Shame. I’m convinced that the topic struck a little too close to home for these closet Walk-of-Shamers.

Narayan Kissoon consoles these closet cases in his definition. “It’s when a girl or guy walks home after spending the night with someone,” said Kissoon, a first-year student majoring in neuroscience. “I don’t really think it’s all that shameful. If people want to do it, that’s their decision.”

Walking past the Beta frat house at about 3 a.m. will yield a rousing and very slurred version of “Piano Man.” In fact, the musically gifted at Connecticut College developed a song, which is a tribute to the Walk of Shame. I encourage you to check it out. Simply plug this address into your browser and you can download it: http://www.oak.cc.conncoll.edu/~wsmix/walk.mp3.

This amusing little song is something that you can sing to yourself the next time you wander home on your own personal Walk of Shame.