“You give it away like free samples / But I don’t want what anyone can have”

I was at a work event last week and we liked to enjoy ourselves at night.  It was one of those events where, following dinner, adults from their mid-20’s to mid-50’s turn into wannabe frat boys for a few hours, consume lots of drinks, play music, and tell crazy stories.  One night, we had a good-sized crowd in my room doing all of the above.  It went on until 1:30 in the morning before I kicked everyone out.  When I got up the next morning, I walked into a scene reminiscent of the morning after in The Hangover.  There was shit everywhere, empty beer bottles, plastic cups, food wrappers, chip crumbs, magazines strewn on the floor.  The balcony door was open and it was like an icebox in the room.  The worst part was the sticky floor and foul odor of stale beer that no cold air could entirely kill.

And that’s when it happened — this song popped into my head and brought me back to SUNY Cortland in the early 1990’s.  The night was nowhere near as bad as that shithole school, of which I am a graduate, but it brought back that eerie morning-after feeling of a good ol’ fashioned rager where rules and order do not apply and everybody and everything suffers as a result.  We ignored standard dorm rules.  We treated college houses and apartments as if destruction and debauchery were not only common, but encouraged.  We bought beer for maximum quantity, fuck quality.  Hell, we’d buy full cases of Hamm’s for $5.99 and if you’ve ever consumed Hamm’s, you’d know why that’s ridiculous.  We had a bright blue carpet in my dorm room that was so soaked with beer, it never dried and constantly smelled.  No one cared.  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.  “You Got It” represents the best of those times — and is as close as I want to get to those times ever again.