Cachinnation #1

The most recent cachinnation I busted into occurred on the night of September 8^th, 2013.  It was my friend Bret Polk’s birthday.  September 8^th just so happened to fall on a Sunday night, which is the day my Fraternity has chapter meetings.  We have a tradition of dumping members of the Fraternity into the pond behind the Fraternity house if their birthday falls on a Sunday of one of our chapter meetings.  This tradition is called “fronding” or “frat ponding”. It never fails to provide quite a bit of amusement for everyone involved.  It is particularly funny because the pond is quite disgusting.  The water is murky, brown, stagnant, and poor smelling.  The thought of plunging into it is enough to make me cringe.  Luckily for me, my birthday is over winter break.

 Bret, however, was not so lucky.  There was no escaping his fate.  After the chapter meeting was over he tried with all his might to escape the mob that descended upon him. He stood no chance. It was quite comical watching Bret scurry around the chapter room in a feeble attempt to evade his captors.  A few others and I stood by and laughed hysterically while Bret was being seized.  Once he was caught, Bret was hoisted into the air and carried out the back door of the Fraternity house.  He was stripped of his iPhone and wallet as the mob barreled towards the pond with him hoisted over their heads.  After being carried down the hill leading up to the pond, Bret was thrown into the water.  Most of the crowd that stuck around to watch was cheering and snickering upon Bret’s impact with the water.  I laughed uncontrollably as Bret tried to pull his way out of the pond.  When he finally made his way out, he received a round of applause.  Bret was soaked from head to toe with some of the nastiest water I have ever seen in my entire life.  He was covered in mud and his soaking wet clothes clung to his body.  Bret also had all kinds of crap in his hair, which I found particularly funny because he has a weird obsession with his hair.  A few of my pledge brothers and myself even snapped a few photos so the moment would live on in infamy.

Bret’s mishap was a perfect example of schadenfreude, which is the German word for laughing at someone else’s expense.  I thought about the term schadenfreude and how we had used it in class while Bret was being “fronded”.  It seemed to perfectly apply to the moment.  Half of the Fraternity was laughing at Bret’s misfortune for quite some time. Many of us were even rolling around on the floor laughing in response to the situation.  Bret wasn’t too upset over being tossed into the pond and even laughed it off on his way back up to the house.  The “fronding” created quite the memory for everyone who saw it.  I still joke with Bret about it all the time.  I’ll never let him forget that he was submerged in that gross pond.