one little story from the rush files, before i lock them away in the Things I'd Like To Forget, And Soon file.

part of my job with panhellenic was handling the many phone calls of irate parents. especially extremely irate mommies.

one such angry mom called on the third night of rush. apparently, her little princess had been cut "released" (i'm so politically correct) from almost all of the houses on campus on account of her 2.38 grade point average. months before rush, mom had sent us a fax detailing how her daughter had gone to an extremely competitive high school with an extremely difficult grading scale. to make a long story short, her little precious angel from heaven should not have a 2.38, as her high school and the university had calculated, she should have a 3.3. on the mommy grading scale. we at the panhellenic office found this pretty hilarious at the time, but in order to keep her happy and from doing us personal harm, we sent out all of this information, the official records plus mom's revised version, to each and every house on campus. naturally, 11 out of 12 houses also found that pretty hilarious. she was released from all of the houses she was interested in, and i had the pleasure of discussing this with her extremely angry and threatening mother on the phone. three times.

another mom waited until bid day to call me up. after being released from the houses she had wanted, this girl had withdrawn from rush and headed home. mom called back early bid day morning, after we have packed up our whole office and the girls have all received their bids, just to see if there wasn't some way we could let her back into rush. when i gently informed her that rush was over, mom began hysterically bawling. after thirty minutes, Thirty Minutes, of intense conversation with a sniffling mom, i finally convinced her that this experience had not "completely ruined [her] daughter's life" as she kept insisting.

"completely ruined," folks. she's 18 years old, not two weeks into college, and her life is absolutely, completely ruined.

somehow i think mtv is missing out on the real story. forget sorority life, try "the life and times of sorority moms." a rare and dangerous breed.

i can only pray that my tires escape slashing for the next few weeks.