"We're Getting Ellen Drunk Tonight"...

...,Teresa said to me in a conspiratorial whisper. "Yeeaahh", I replied. She knew I would be game. I was pretty much game for anything back in the day.

Ellen was softspoken. She loved her Catholic religion. And we loved her to death. But she needed to loosen the fuck up. Teresa and I were just the ones to do it. We didn't have a plan in place, but once we were at the party and the drinking commenced, we improvised. It worked out perfectly but nearly ended in disaster.

Teresa, Ellen, the other three girls and I went to the DKE house to attend their weekly Thursday night party (I attended a suitcase college where Thursdays were the ultimate nights to have parties throughout the frat houses and off campus apartments). We were DKE party perennials and there's was always our first stop. The brothers were our buddies and it was always a good time, with good music, but pissy Rolling Rock in kegs. Nevertheless, RR would do the job and do it well.

At every party we went to, Ellen's M.O. would be to milk the same jumbo plastic cup of beer all night long. She sipped just enough to look included, but we had never seen her get good and plastered. For some reason Teresa and I felt the need to initiate her into the sisterhood of piss-your-pants-drunkeness.

Down in the basement, the six of us had our beers and stood in our naturally formed circle as we danced and looked around at everyone while having forgettable pointless conversations.

Teresa and I eyed Ellen taking baby sips from her cup and we ordered her to chug with us. The three of us leaned our heads back as the beer emptied down our throats. In reality, it emptied down Ellen's throat....Teresa and I just acted the part. Ellen was nearly finished with her beer when she took a breath and grimaced. We continued dancing and when she looked away, Teresa and I dumped our beers into her cup.

We ordered her to finish all of her beer. "Hey", she said as she looked into her cup with a puzzled expression, "I thought I drank more than that...what the..."

"Empty the cup Ellen". And so she did. After a couple more chugging episodes like the first one that transpired, Ellen was feeling no pain.

At one point the six of us split up to shmooze with other people we knew and one of us decided to move it along to another frat party. Being that Ellen needed some assistance in staying upright, I needed to keep her in one spot while I gathered the rest of the girls, so I brought her upstairs and propped her up against a wall in the hallway. I looked her in the eye, told her we were going to another party and ordered her to stay put while I looked for the other girls. I told one of the frat brothers I knew and trusted to keep an eye on her until I got back. He said no problem.

After the girls and I found each other, we came up to fetch Ellen...but she wasn't where I left her. I asked that so called trusted frat boy where she went and he shrugged his shoulders and turned back around to the girl he was chatting up.

I asked around and no one saw her leave, so the five of us girls ran around the house calling her name, entering rooms and even looking in the attic (it was a big old run down shabby Victorian mansion and had a shitload of rooms). We were panicked. She was nowhere in the house. Ellen was certifiably missing..... (to be continued)