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The Night of Laringo

Last week, I promised to share the most rambunctious collegiate memory that surfaced over the weekend in Charleston. I made this promise for two reasons: 1- I was hanging out with my “good influence” college friends who had limited exposure to my most flagrant lasciviousness. 2- I was fully expecting a particular story to be told, because it’s always told. It’s an amusing, unique, classic story that sends me into a spiral of red-faced cringing and forehead cradling. We could be at a wedding reception, sipping wine and talking about how beautiful the bride is, and out of nowhere someone will say “Hey, remember Laringo?” And then everyone else jumps on the pile, eager to share their memories of the most embarrassing night of my college life.

But amazingly, an entire weekend went by without mention of Laringo! My friends must be losing it in their old age. Indeed, the untold story left a void. A void that I will now fill…

I met Laringo at a party on Hobart Lane, UMass Amherst’s notorious off-campus non-Greek party spot. I was fed up with the idiots at the party, and noticed a very tall, porcine black kid quietly standing by himself. Right when I said Hi to him, Bizmarkie’s “Just a Friend” came on, and he amused me by gently mocking all the white kids dancing to the corny rap. I hung out with Laringo for a bit, then my friends went to another party and I decided to call it a night.

Laringo offered to walk me back to my dorm. I accepted; it was a friendly and normal gesture since we lived in adjacent dorms. When we reached my dorm, he followed me to the security desk and gave the security desk his ID to get “signed in” as my guest. This unhinged me. I was a tittle lipsy. “Um, oh, you want to come in? Um, well, I’m going to sleep. Um, I guess I’ll sign you in. Um, bye. Oh, um, you’re coming up? My roommates might be sleeping. Well, um, oh.”

Once he was legally inside of my dorm, Laringo followed me to my room, a large triple room where my roommates were hosting an informal gathering of about a half-dozen neighbors and friends. When we appeared, the room hushed. Laringo ignored everyone and walked directly to my bed. “Help me!” I mouthed to stunned onlookers as a fully-clothed Laringo climbed into my bed. He wordlessly stared at me as I paced near the bed and jabbered about how late it was, and how my roommates wanted to go to sleep, and how he should maybe leave.

Meanwhile, word spread like wildfire down the hallway: There’s a gigantic black man laying in Meredith’s bed! Within a few minutes, about 20 different people visited our room to gawk at Laringo. It was high entertainment. Finally, after about a half-hour, my roommates made it very clear that we were going to sleep, and Laringo finally got out of my bed and left our room without incident or fuss.

The night of Laringo made me a laughingstock of our entire floor. Even my “bad influence” college friends got in on the fun, leaving messages on my voicemail in their best ebonic accents (Yo baby, whazup, diz Laringo) and playing “Jungle Fever” on the stereo at random times over the next two years. The enduring appeal of the Laringo episode comes from a combination of things: That he was black, huge, and had beached himself on my bed; that I was noticeably distraught and babbling; and that when a group of us went to breakfast the next morning, I talked loudly about how horrible the situation had been before realizing that I had chosen a table right across from Laringo himself.

Posted in Massachusetts, Nostalgia.

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