Toss a couple of Ludens cough drops in that cocktail!!! 

You had fun last night. As you resume your daily routine, a walk is bound to occur. The walk could be a few blocks to your apartment, or several steps to the door when a friend picks you up for breakfast and the lucky participant is still in your bed. You may not even be the walker. You may remain sedentary and naked on the couch as a roommate, friend, or god forbid a family member emerges from their slumber to discover you and your lucky participant in a compromising position.

Any time a distance is traversed directly after an unplanned encounter, there is an opportunity for a walk of shame. Let’s dissect the components of a walk of shame, in order to help you turn yours into a walk of pride next time.

1. Clothing
Halloween of 2006, I dressed up as Alice in Zombieland. This involved costume make-up and an eighties prom dress from a thrift store. My platonic best friend had scheduled his fantasy basketball draft in the middle of Halloween night (like a normal person). I accompanied him back to his dorm and waited impatiently and loudly for the draft to end so we could make our way to Time Out (Chapel Hill’s famous 24 hr Sports Bar) for a late night snack of honey biscuits and fried chicken. You don’t have to be Nostradamus to predict I passed out on his couch before the draft was over, and he didn’t wake me up. The next morning I was horrified to awake in a building of boys, wearing an eighties prom dress, faced with a hike across campus and nothing to change into. What’s more, a giant renovation had begun this morning. Campus was the ghost town typical of November 1^st before 10 a.m., only this morning, it was also peppered with construction workers.
The Right Idea: Try to swap a couple of articles of clothing to look more casual.
Tactical Error: I borrowed the Nike visor my friend had worn as Tiger Woods the night before. And I walked barefoot. If you’re wearing something impossible to disguise, don’t try. Now instead of just walking across campus at 9 a.m. in a prom dress, I was walking across campus at 9 a.m. wearing a prom dress, a man’s Nike visor, and no shoes. I might as well have worn Moustache Glasses, or some tree branches and a trashcan lid. I managed to make myself—a 19 year old virgin on the way back from passing out on a platonic friend’s couch—look like a total frat mattress.
In this situation, I should have recognized the Clothing angle was a lost cause, and made a play involving Timing or Swagger.

2. Timing
Whether your walk occurs at 3 am or 8 am, your timing will be telling a story.
The Right Idea: Know the timing you’re going to face, and make it work for you. You’re not on your way back from an encounter. You’re on your way TO ____ (go golfing at 9 a.m. in a prom dress is not an acceptable answer)An example of making timing work for you is the Casual Friday Maneuver. If you go out on Thursday night wearing a button down shirt nice jeans, you can easily exit your paramour’s apartment at 8 a.m. looking sharp and ready on Casual Friday. This is known as “doing it right.”
Tacital Error: If, however, that button down shirt is bloodstained and your jeans are still soaked from Thursday night’s heroic march through the rain to please your lady, the timing of your exit tells a different story.
In this situation, recognizing the timing angle is polluted by the previous night’s battle scars, opt to utilize clothing, swagger, or a clever combination. If available, a heroically stupid t-shirt can create a diversion from the circumstances of your travels.

3. Swagger
To have a walk of pride, that pride has to come from an honest place. Factual circumstances:
You had a lot more fun last night than whoever is judging you. And that’s all that really matters.

Just cut a hole in the bottom of a solo cup, ya dummy!

very
obvious.
drinking
kicks
ass

this spring, i made up this acronym on the fly, to demonstrate to a friend the short, bullshit post i would make in my blog instead of the long one he was working on for his. it’s relevant to my next post, so here it finally stands as a short bullshit post in my blog!