CHAPTER 5 – PRETTY IN PINK OR WHATEVER

CHAPTER 5 – PRETTY IN PINK OR WHATEVER

What started out as a normal October day back in 1997, turned out to be something it wasn’t intended to be. A real life version of the movie To Wong Fu –Thanks for Everything Julie Newman..
Before I go any further, there is one guy that I have to introduce. Jeff was our photography professor. Not only was he our prof, but also he was just as or possibly more childish than most of us students were, cause he really wasn’t that much older than some of us.
Time and again pranks were pulled out of our repertoire on poor ol’ Jeffy. And in his defence, he pulled some good ones out of his hat as well. Especially this one, but you see…this worked out to our favor and NOT his…

Every Halloween the NBCC Woodstock College Radio station CHCR (would become CKXY) hosted it’s fundraising event known as “Halloween Havoc.” - a weeklong fundraising event with a number of different Halloween themed activities. A pie auction was one such event where the person of your choice was auctioned off to the highest bidder and placed in old-fashioned stocks. Once said “prisoners” hands and head were secured, those who won were able to rub whip cream in any available orfice in the prisioner’s head. That included nose, ears, mouth, and it wouldn’t be any fun unless it was rubbed thoroughly through their hair.(believe me, getting whipped cream out of your ear canal is no fun at all.)
The event of all events during Havoc week was the slave auction. Very similar to the pie auction where people were sold off to the highest bidder, but instead of whip cream in the eye or ear nose..., whomever it was that won the auction “owned” that particular slave for the rest of that day and would have them do their bidding. For instance, Nick had to skip through the halls for the afternoon singing "I'm a little teapot."
In the weeks approaching the slave auction, Jeff would often remind myself as well as my fellow journalism co-hort/partner in crime Homer (Dave) that “our asses would be his at the slave auction.” This statement was often met with a few friendly but very foul retorts.
You see, there were just so many things that Homer and I did to Jeff, it was tough to be sure what it was that set him off in such an immature and unprofessional manner. But as usual, knowing Jeff, it was probably just to be a bastard. And oh baby he didn’t disappoint.

Auction day finally arrived, and CHCR staff notified us when we were going on. We had known for days, mainly because Jeff was more than willing to remind us at every available opportunity that he signed us up. Even walking through the Comm Arts wing, we were stopped by a number of students or staff saying that they were going to win us and do their worst. As journalists and Comm Arts students, we were pretty well known within the college ranks, probably because of our impromtu wraslin matches in the middle of the cafeteria, so there were a few people as well as other instructors who would have loved to get their hands on the two of us.
Who do we see in the hallway next but Jeffy, and what he had in his hand stopped us dead in our tracks.
“I told you you’re asses would be mine,” he stated with a boyish grin on his face.(Besides the fact that most of his hair was retreating from his face, and in a hurry.. Jeff looked quite young. Which made him a piece of eye candy for the female persuasion and the odd male…you had to know Jody D.) It wasn’t the grin on his face that worried us, cause we had seen him look like an idiot before. Nope, it was the chequebook he carried in his hand that caught our attention.

The bastard meant business.

There were only a couple of people before us, and then the time came. In front of an estimated 150 people, Homer and I took our places on the bench/auction block. With so many people in the cafeteria, we weren’t exactly sure where Jeff was lurking…but we knew he was out there. He wouldn’t miss this for the world.
The bidding started at $20, and then rose to $25. The chequebook flies in the air and we hear Jeff yell out “Forty dollars!” The bidding war went on way longer than we were expecting, and I believe before our future master gave his last bid, other students and college staff raised an amazing $115. But no one was beating him on this day. (All monies raised during the weeklong event went to the speech pathology unit at the local hospital so we were more than willing to put our prides on the line for such a good cause.)
“One hundred thirty!” The cafeteria went nuts, and we were sold. Next thing we see Jeff coming out of the crowd with a black Moosehead Premium Dry duffel bag and that oh so familiar geeky smile. On his way past us he only utters one word.
“Bathroom. “And disappears through the men’s door.

At first we thought we were going to be playing janitor and have to clean the bathrooms all afternoon, cause that would be something he would do. We followed him through the doors and were barely two steps inside when he instructed us to “disrobe.” As we were taking our clothes off, and between the odd gay joke thrown in his direction, he pulled out the most horrendous woman’s clothing I had ever seen in my life. And obviously old clothes his wife would never wear again.
His revenge, to humiliate us by dressing us up in drag and have us prance around like little women for the rest of the afternoon. And yes, incase you are wondering, it did mean going to our classes like that as well.(Ha Ha, you should have seen the look on poor ol Bernie’s face.) Besides my goatee I was sporting a full length rose patterned number with a frilly white-laced V-neck collar and a black wig (at least the wig and my beard matched, other wise I would have felt foolish). I sort of felt like a tool until I saw what Dave would be wearing down the runway. A multi-colored blouse with a hot pink knee high skirt and a brown wig. I didn’t feel so bad then.
It was show time. Time to reveal our feminine sides to the throngs of people waiting in the cafeteria. We walked out of the bathroom, met by complete silence. The odd thing was the auction was still going on. Mila Jovovich and Christie Brinkley had nothing on us. I kid you not, for at least 10-seconds, not a word was spoken, even Brucie, my roommate and MC for the event was speechless, and if you knew him you would know how big of a task that really was.
Finally the place erupted in laughter and applause. Jeff was in all of his glory, well for a couple of seconds anyway. He thought that he would be able to humiliate us, and we could have given him his glory, but we were even bigger bastards than he was, so there was no way that was happening.

Dave and I ate the situation right up; we acted like perfect ladies. Sitting with our legs crossed, curtseying at every available moment, and tee-heeing at even the stupidest jokes. Keith, a fellow journalist was taking snapshots of us for the college newspaper. Dave and I were standing side by each, doing our best model impersonations when Jeff decided to poke his head in. Before he had a chance to move, we planted a big wet kiss on either cheek. The kiss was partly to rub in the fact that the whole situation wasn’t bugging us and also to see what his wife’s reaction would be when she saw two kiss marks.

It was then he knew that his plan to “have our Asses” had failed. And did we ever revel in it. We were even considering staying in costume for the rest of the day and heading to JR’s for ladies night. I am sure Mike the bartender would have loved that. And if it weren’t for the idiot local yokels of Woodstock, we probably would have tried, but we would have been beaten within an inch of our lives as soon as we walked out the door.