Life as the party-thrower, not the party-goer

It is a Friday night. You’ve finally finished all of your classes, and you are now ready to get dressed up, take selfies, bong beers and get the parties going. You may plan to go to bar or the hottest parties off campus – either way you’re going to drink yourself into a coma and wake up the next day, hangover-free and hopefully in your own bed.

This may be the typical way a college student plans out their weekend, but if you’re on the other side of things and you’re the broke college student throwing the party, your night, as well as your morning, may play out a bit differently.

Coming into college as a freshman, I always looked forward to moving off campus into a house or an apartment where there was actually enough space to throw a party. I had considered throwing a party in my freshman dorm but there was hardly enough room to put on socks, let alone throw a rager.

When I finished my freshman year, I moved out into an apartment off-campus – a four bedroom, two bathroom apartment that is considerably spacious and really nice for a college student. My sophomore year I threw parties almost every weekend in that apartment, and I still throw a decent amount now well into my junior year. Though this may sound awesome and fun, the risks of being the party-thrower are vastly different from being the party-goer.

To start off my night, if my roommates and I decide to throw a party, it typically starts something like this: we will go around the entire living/kitchen area and hide or lock up anything that is valuable. We pretty much clear the room of anything over $10.00. We call this “drunk-proofing” the apartment. The risks typically start when your first 20-30 people arrive. Your eyes are everywhere watching your belonging and making sure people behave and fights don’t break out. Get past this stage as fast as you can. After you are past that stage, you stop noticing bad things happening in your apartment – this is usually past the point of no return.

So many bizarre things have happened during parties that I would’ve never imagined. The worst by far is finding holes in your wall. I currently have about 3 un-patched holes in my wall with no clue how they got there. I typically wake up 3 north face jackets richer than when I went to sleep. Understand that your doors may get busted down and you’ll have to spend an entire evening at home depot trying to figure out how to fix it.

It is not uncommon to find beer poured into your favorite and brand new candle, your toilet, your garbage can, and just about anywhere that will keep liquids. Don’t be alarmed when you find odd things in your bathrooms. You are lucky if all you find in your shower is some stranger’s urine, someone once decided to take a shit right on my shower floor. This no joke.

This actually happened. It is also not uncommon to find out you are now housing the homeless in your coat closet. Don’t buy expensive steaks because mine were once stolen in the middle of a party. Be prepared to clean in the morning because people will throw up, everywhere. Its inevitable, you will clean up someones puke one night.

You will most likely have to post a PSA on twitter trying to contact the 4 people that left their wallets and ID’s in your place. You may even have to Swiffer the ceiling because people think its fun to pop champagne all over it.

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When it all comes down to it, someone has to throw the parties. I can honestly say through all of the ridiculous things that I have experienced from being the party-thrower, the memories and good times will make for great stories someday.