>>> About Last Night…
By staff writer Ali Wisch
August 10, 2005
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.