Pizza and pandemonium in Frist

What you see before you is the log that I kept of my experience in the Frist Food Gallery from the night of Saturday, Oct. 15 to the early morning of Sunday, Oct. 16. Although I find it difficult to communicate how awkward I was in this setting, here’s a vague idea: I sat alone, directly across from the stairs so that I could see all goings-on. It was the night of Casino- and ’80s-themed parties. I was clearly the odd one out in normal, not-costumed attire on my laptop with my books. Here is my story:

10:16 p.m. — I look around McGraw Center and realize that my only other neighbors have already begun to drool on their laptops with all sorts of Hulu clips open. I sympathize — I mean, it’s Saturday night. Not even the seemingly frustrated prodigy pounding on the piano downstairs can possibly rouse them from their mini comas. Such is my cue to descend into the bowels of depravity: the Frist Food Gallery.

10:56 p.m. — There have been a fair share of sequined dresses flock through here, but the vast majority seem to have taken this Casino Night as an opportunity to dress up in full 1920s attire as if they were sneaking into speakeasies and calling their friends the “cat’s pajamas.” Add in the shoulder-padded dresses and neon windbreakers donned for another club’s ’80s Night, and you’ve got a truly fascinating time travel experience. Utmost respect for that guy who managed to work a dual ‘80s-Casino attire — he’s got his head in the right place. Also, I cannot quite tell whether these stray individuals are pre-gaming or post-gaming. Call me inexperienced, but I feel like 11 p.m. is a bit early to be asleep in public. (Scratch that; a friend just informed me that Casino Night started around dinnertime. How the hell do these people have such stamina!? Go to sleep.)

11:14 p.m. — Already I’ve seen four less-than-sober individuals chase their friends through the food gallery calling them “so fucking badass” for cutting through Frist to get from Guyot to the Street quicker. I can’t be certain whether it’s the Princeton environment or alcohol consumption that has so degraded our standards for badass-ness around here. We gotta work on that.

11:25 p.m. — Cute, content, sober couple walks by, suddenly making me enraged that I’m alone writing my Constitutional Interpretation paper while being a creepy-ass stalker here in Frist on a Saturday night. Feel better again when that girl that I always judge on the Street falls asleep in her pizza. Her friend is crying about frats. She makes me sad again. Dammit.

11:43 p.m. — Food Gallery is stormed by studious kids. It’s interesting, really, how the demographic of the Food Gallery changes given the time of day. Princeton looks a lot more like its ugly stereotype at night. Just sayin’.

12:23 a.m. — Girl walks down the stairs in swimmies. She actually looks pretty hot, so I think this could be a thing.

12:35 a.m. — I decide to indulge in my own piece of pizza. There’s always such variety. It’s no wonder that the line takes so long. If you’re ever sober enough to do so, please watch people have miniature anxiety attacks in dealing with the responsibility of choosing their pizza toppings. A couple even got in a fight about whether those olives were really necessary. I went with a banana-pepper-and-pineapple slice. This is easily the best choice I’ve made as a student at this lovely institution, even though I am sober. I ask the cashier for a brief interview, you know, to get to really understand the plight of tolerating us stupid kids on a weekly basis. I am immediately rejected. Apparently the powers-that-be at Frist have forbidden the workers from confiding anything in the press. Makes me feel sorta sleazy, but cool, too ... like Rita Skeeter.

12:44 a.m. — I get in a heated debate with a friend as to whether Ryan Gosling’s “Drive” was a pretentious piece of wannabe-European torture-porn (spoiler: it was). He, like many others throughout the night, abandons me to go Terrace. So I win the debate by default, right?

1:09 a.m. — Kids dressed in pajamas and seemingly under the influence of something quite exciting have a sushi-eating race. Afterward they sprint up and down the stairs to the Frist Multipurpose Room. Then, they leave. Shit’s getting weird.

1:21 a.m. — The Blood Alcohol Content of this latest batch indeed seems to have risen quite a bit. That kid who was doing push-ups shirtless on the table last Thursday night has managed to get most of his clothes off already. I hear a different gentleman propose a threesome to two lady-friends. His invitees and I were all unclear as to the sincerity of his request. Serious props for having balls enough to “drunk incept” that idea, pal. Meanwhile, the sad beginnings of what would have flourished into a pleasant Soulja Boy-and-Beatles mash-up was just broken up by a small pack of individuals who are dressed as if they had just left a Miami gangster convention.

1:29 a.m. — Lost parents ask me how to get to Lot 28. Again, I feel a pang of sorrow from the evidently cruel nature of the cosmos.

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1:32 a.m. — I’ve just received a look of icy judgment from the one other girl from my hometown that goes here. News of my stalker proclivities will surely spread to my high school roots. I don’t know if I have the fortitude to bear another hour here.

1:36 a.m. — I’ve now been here long enough to watch people pre-game and post-game by binging on Frist’s greasy foodstuffs. Accomplishment?

1:47 a.m. — Anonymous and absolutely unscientific poll proves that 1) everyone here would rather be asleep than talking to anyone else here and that 2) a fair fraction of these people didn’t even go out tonight. Rather, they need an excuse to come eat a lot. Interesting.

1:53 a.m. — SO MANY PEOPLE JUST CAME DOWN THE STAIRS WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED?!

2:00 a.m. — Ask a large and occasionally intimidating athlete friend of mine if I can quote him for this article. He replies, “Fuck no, Becker. I’ll sue you for slander.” His name, of course, will remain unmentioned. The line for pizza has now curled back into the garbage area. This is quite convenient, given that a majority of those waiting in line look eager to ... well ... make room in their stomachs for their subsequent pizza binge. One girl is vomiting into what is quite clearly labeled as the recycling receptacle. Such environmental irresponsibility among the youth these days ...

2:16 a.m. — In a cranky state of tiredness and unproductiveness, I head back to my dorm with a friend. I simply don’t have the drive to stay at Frist for another hour. As we pass by the Art Museum, we are offered heroin. After a gentle refusal, I am quite happy to go back and sleep.

Despite the illicit drug solicitation at the end, the night was pretty tame. There weren’t nearly as many bros wrestling, sisters screeching or creepy half-conscious hook-ups as I had remembered from my past endeavors in Frist pizza debauchery. And yet, I now realize the merit of Frist pizza, not just as a cafeteria, but also as a meeting place to provide a wide range of Princetonians, from the sober to the barely conscious, a sociable and entertaining release from our busy week.