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The walk of shame is something that all college students are
familiar with (if not, backtrack and read my
original account). At some point or another, we've all woken up
in that unfamiliar dorm room, had to leave our underwear in the mess
of clothes that comprise the floor, and tried to sneak out without
letting the man of the hour (name forgotten, along with second half
of the night), know of our existence. Did you know though, that the
walk of shame doesn't take place solely on college campuses? To my
surprise the walk of shame comes in many shapes and sizes...and
different parts of the world.
This time you wake up and it is
around two in the afternoon. Your head feels like someone rolled a
keg over it and it smells like your ex-best friend Jim Beam threw up
all over you. You hear someone snoring and you attempt to roll over
but then realize you are wedged between the wall and a body. You
listen more closely and then realize that the body lying next to
you/trapping you against the wall is not the one snoring.
Interesting. You lift your head up the five inches of space you have
and, HELLO; there are six other people in this room. Seems you've
made your way back to someone's hostel. Great. This makes the escape
tactics slightly more difficult because not only do you have to
attempt to escape unnoticed from one person, you have to try to get
out without waking six other people up.
Before you have a chance to move though, the man lying beside you
has done an about face and startles you with a ?Buenas dias!? Wait
what? In your head you were Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible,
halfway back to your flat, sneaking out without a trace...how did he
wake up? This has suddenly gotten more complicated. You grab a
crumpled t-shirt from the end of the bed, slip it over your head and
climb over this very friendly, very awake, stranger. You sneak into
the bathroom and find, to your surprise, your clothes in a wet pile
on the floor. You do the best you can to squeeze into them, peek
back in the room to find your Romeo passed out again, and head out
the front door and down the stairs—all twelve thousand of them.
You are now in phase one of the walk of shame in Spain. As you put
on your sunglasses to avoid any eye contact with anyone in
proximity, you recognize the giant whale statue, which means one of
two things. The first being that you need to find a metro because
you are quite far from your flat, and the second being that there is
a Swedish family standing about five feet from you, pointing and
laughing.
Okay then. Before you have a chance to even fathom which part of you
they are laughing at (the soaked clothes, the smell, the look of a
lost puppy dog?) you see a giant M in the sky. No, it's not the
golden arches of McDonalds, but almost as good. It is the sign that
means metro and before you know it you are running, full speed
ahead, toward that sign.
You jump on the metro, green line, and find it surprisingly empty.
You take an empty seat, throw your feet up on the one across from
you, and make yourself comfortable for the 4-stop ride. You get to
the first stop and there are more people on the platform than shoes
in Paris Hilton's closet. You take your feet off of the seat in
front of you and without realizing it have begun rapidly scanning
the platform for those people who you don't want sitting in the
seats surrounding you. It's like when you're sitting on a plane
while people are boarding, and within two seconds of seeing each
person walk down the aisle, you have decided whether or not you'll
be okay with them sitting next to you. Brad Pitt look-a-like: okay.
25-year-old woman with crying baby: not okay. Why is it that once
you have stooped to this level of superficiality that the exact
opposite of who you were hoping for sits down? We will never know.
So as you gaze at the platform waiting to see which fate awaits, you
look up only to find the Brad Pitt look-a-like has chose the seat
next to you! So you're thinking, "Brilliant!" Nope, you're not
thinking brilliant because you quickly get a whiff of yourself and
realize you stink like a donkey's ass and look like someone hit you
with a truck and then reversed over you for fun.
Now that you have spent the entire
metro ride doing everything you are capable of to avoid any sort of
interaction/blatant staring at the eye candy sitting next to you,
you are finally at your stop. You get off and begin the stroll down
your street. You are smiling and nodding at the people passing
by—that is, until you come to your reflection in one of the store
windows and come to a complete halt. Aside from the utterly obvious
stamp that somehow made it from your wrist to your forehead, you see
something far more frightening. The shorts you are wearing are not
your shorts. In fact, they are men's briefs. At first you think,
okay, maybe people will just think they are cotton shorts until you
see the buttons down the front and the giant CALVIN KLEIN printed on
the back and realize you are fucked. Because now not only have you
embarrassed yourself in front of all of Europe but whoever the guy
is that you spent the night with is going to think you are some
freak who likes to steal men's underwear. Awesome.
You finally make it to your flat only to trek it up the four flights
of stairs and walk inside to find that in opening the door and the
three bolt locks, you have woken a guest sleeping on your couch, who
happens to be your ex-boyfriend. Standing at the door, wet, smelly,
and noticeably in a random man's underwear they just laugh at you
and pass back out. They can't be bothered. You walk into your room
to find one of your roommates and a strange Spanish man have taken
over your bed for the evening so you head to the kitchen. After
three cups of coffee and a shower you are starting to feel a bit
better. You put on a bathing suit and head down to the beach to
forget it all, because while the walk of shame in Spain is not
erasable, like all other drunken escapades, it shall always remain
forgettable.
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