Corporations taking over a frat house? That’s got to be one step jollier than wine in the conference room to toast the retirement of Melvin in Accounts. What got me thinking along these lines was a story coming out of the World Athletic Championships in Eugene, Oregon, an unassuming college town of 180,000 taxpayers and dependents. Due to limited hotels, inns, Airbnbs and even mangers, several corporations most notably Adidas and Puma took over Frat Houses for the duration. The championships took place July 15-24 so the houses were empty save a few stragglers scratching their stubble and wondering where the keg went.

           A corporation doesn’t just sashay into a Frat House and set up a slickly realized hospitality front. Said houses must be fixed up months in advance. Picture a reel-to-reel version of Animal House run backwards.

First forensic teams in white boiler suits look in closets and under beds, suspicious items then bagged for potential analysis. The beds carted away and replaced with virgin mattresses and bedding. Beer sodden carpets are rolled up and carted off. Beer sodden floorboards crowbarred up and replaced. Beer sodden dirt remediated after full EPA inspection. How could a structure become so marinated in suds? To quote a recently appointed Supreme Court justice. “We drank beer and still do. So whatever, yeah.”

A fraternity is by definition a male province. In one frat house (this part is true!) one step in the conversion to a female communal bathroom was to place a large bouquet of roses in each urinal to diminish the totality of all that yawning porcelain. Urinals, yuck, it’s like man-spreading without the man.

Once the frat house has been stripped of all sin, the punched-in holes patched, and broken door locks replaced, the structure must be inundated by a dual tsunami of disinfectant and paint.

Finally we are ready for corporate hospitality. It’s all very professional. Men in blazers and tie-less dress shirts. Women in whatever women wear to events like this. Corporate memorabilia, displays, videos. Overplayed smiles and Good Morning America bonhomie.

Through the wonders of blog-o-vision we zoom in on a conversation in one of the hospitality booths at the Alpha Theta house. It starts innocently enough. Blazer A says to Pants Suit B, “So you’re actually staying in a Frat House. That’s brave.” When Pants Suit takes too long to reply he fills the silence with, “I guess there’s a first time for everything, huh?”

From the resultant blush it becomes obvious that Pant Suit’s first time was not all that recently.

He is 28; she 27. A dangerous age for rock stars and for careers. With the latter it is that time when it is beginning to dawn on you that this job you took to tide you over until you could get your affairs in order and embark on the great American novel, vet school, a restart of that folk/rock band (with a better bass player this time), is in serious danger of becoming permanent.

Turns out Rick Schierholtz, VP of Sales, Western Region and head suit in charge of the Alpha Theta promo had been a frat rat. Here he is taking in the trophy case. Wow! First place in mixed two man volleyball. Rick played volleyball. Spent a glorious summer playing beach ball. Oh to be barefoot in the sand. The thud of the ball. The cries of gulls and girls. That blonde with the lithe figure and that charming little grunt when she spiked the ball. Melissa? Melinda? Melody? What if she had been his destiny and he’d blown it.

Over at the Psi Delt house they are playing it differently. Instead of covering up the original Greek sin with sheetrock and paint they are playing to type. A toga party featuring non-alcoholic beer and Greek outfits approved by a team of compliance lawyers, Human Resources professionals, and the Greco-American Business Forum. Down the hall the Grunge Garage offers temporary tattoos. The vibe is severely compromised by a chart illustrating which body parts are “ink-appropriate”. Upstairs there’s the Haight Ashbury Room. The smell of incense, patchouli oil and clove cigarettes. Ravi Shankar on the music system. 67.2 percent of the visitors, aware that in Oregon marijuana is legal for adults, take a bite of a brownie and say, Hey, what’s in this thing anyway?

Hosts and guests wander back to the main room to behold the slick displays and tables full of corporate giveaways manned by tanned guys sporting $200 haircuts and immaculately coiffed ladies all wearing their corporately approved togas. A real toga is a wrap-around sheet tied together above one shoulder, leaving the other one fetchingly bare, or not, depending on how you feel about knobby shoulders and/or visible bra straps. The corporate design keeps the bare shoulder but anchors the wraparound below and mid-point as well as adding a bulletproof shoulder clasp—knot plus snaps. Arriving back from the pretend counterculture there is only one question to ask: really, this is my life? Maybe it’s time for some real partying. Except, OMG right over there, in a suit not toga, is Jay Krock billionaire founder of the Ocelot sporting empire.

Back to Blazer and Pants Suit at the Alpha Theta house. They share a moment. He’s embarrassed that she’s embarrassed about her frat house past, his expression more wince than smile.

To put a line under this cringeworthy detour and move on, she says, “It was all pretty innocent.” It wasn’t. She tries to stop herself from smiling and can’t. “Say, do they have any beer around here.”

“Beer?”

“Yeah, beer. Whatever.”

Full disclosure (and not via a toga malfunction either): I feel a tad guilty about mining such a crass frat house stereotype. I was in a fraternity for all four years of college and loved it. It’s an efficient way to expand your social circle and interact with people you might not naturally gravitate to once compartmentalized in a shared apartment. To state the obvious, all frats are different.