It feels like my entire high school graduating class now goes to Florida State University.
When our school paper published the “college map” senior year, the list of people going to FSU outnumbered any other school by, well, a lot. At least 150 people said they were going to FSU, plus all the people who said they were going to TCC, plus any of the people who got the survey in class and wrote South Harmon Institute of Technology. (“Accepted” wasn’t even that good.)
With that many people going to the same college, naturally I see a barrage of posts about Tallahassee on social media all day, every day.
I know all the hot spots, all the action at the games, what all the tailgates look like, what the coffee shops are, what frats and sororities have the uggos and even some of the basic layout of Club Stroz. I’ve picked all of this up only having been to Tallahassee once for less than 24 hours with my parents for a tour during spring break of my junior year of high school. Not the epitome of the college experience.
Via: Yelp
When Skrillex rolled through Tally on Oct. 29, I decided it was a good opportunity to make a one-nighter. Between the tight time constraint (the show started at 6 o’clock, and we got to Tally at 4:30 p.m.) and the amount of arak — look it up — I had consumed prior to the show, I had absolutely no time to see the people I wanted to, and I barely remember anything except that I really liked the show and that I somehow managed to walk away from my group, come back to adventure to the bathroom all by myself and recognize about a dozen people from my high school.
Luckily, the worst decision I made that night was ordering the chips instead of fries at Po’ Boy’s. Too greasy. My stomach wasn’t happy for a few days.
After that whole experience, I decided I wanted to get back. I haven’t “done” Tally and I wanted to see my frandz. So, while all you fooligans were galavanting around Nashville, I went back to Tallahassee for the Virginia game, just eight days after I had left. This trip was a lot more chill. I actually got to see people and I made it to and from the game in one piece.
It was still pretty early when we left the game (Why do you people leave when you’re winning? I don’t get that, FSU), so I wanted to go out. Naturally, I wanted to go to the one place I’ve seen so many pictures of, read so many statuses about, seen the Snap stories, the Instas, the tweets all about: Coliseum.
Mind you, at this point it’d been a long day of drinking, and I needed to wake up early in the morning and wanted to feel alive, so I made the conscious decision to go to Coliseum sober.
Before I even got inside I knew this was interesting. The Uber took us into the parking lot of a shopping center and I noticed “Coliseum” was written over one of the doors.
Via: Yelp
Yes, Coliseum is in a shopping center.
Security at Coliseum is also tighter than at most airports. They will not even check the next person’s ID until you walk inside, where they then charge ridiculous cover, but you’re standing there by yourself because they only let one person in at a time, so you can’t even congregate with your squad to decide if it’s worth it. Sneaky, sneaky. Coliseum is also home to Bianca, which is not a stripper, but a pizzeria that does not have good Yelp reviews so that they can stay open past 2 a.m. Again, sneaky, sneaky.
So we all finally walk in and, lo and behold, it’s a big club. Not too different from anywhere else I’d ever been. VIP along the perimeter, crowded dance floor, lights everywhere, DJ up on a pedestal in the front.
We go to the bar and, lo and behold, the bartender went to my high school. I let this kid cheat off me in English 2 Honors just because I was nice, and he doesn’t even recognize me. Pissed. I’m calling Ms. Smith to give you a zero on the “Antigone” test from 2009.
We push our way to the front, and that’s when I really take it in. The music was mostly hip-hop and booty shaking music, and I look around to observe the crowd. Half the people seemed normal, but the other half… uh… no. The not-normal people were split into two camps: the ratchet T-Pain wannabes and the ratchet freaks.
Via: Slate
Ya see, the T-Pain wannabes were a large group of black males who all wore those stupid trends we see on the Internet and ask ourselves, “Who’s actually gonna wear that?” These people. That’s who. T-shirts with the pleather sleeves, cheetah print, bucket hats, polos buttoned all the way to the top. They thought they was fly AF, actually they knew they was fly AF. My favorite person was their one scrawny friend, who decided to wear his aviator sunglasses the entire night and throw down his one signature dance move: one hand on the crotch, the other waving in the air side to side. Yo, he’s so chill.
Then there were the ratchet freaks — the misfits, if you will. The only dance move they knew was bouncing up and down, both girls and guys. Just looking off into the distance, and bouncing up and down. Pretty sure some of them were cracked out, but I cannot confirm that hypothesis.
My group was two guys and one girl. All the guys in the club were trying to dance with our friend, and we had to push them off every time because I knew she was not interested in messing with these people. One guy, who looked like his clothes had never seen a washing machine and his hair had never seen a shower, asked me if she was mine every 90 seconds, like clockwork. Short memory. At least I had fun with it: I pointed in various directions each time and said she was with “him.”
The normal people at Coliseum were pretty normal for a college crowd. Lots of freshmen with fakes (I could tell by the look in their eyes and the bands on their wrists), everyone looked like they were from Miami because who else is actually gonna go out after tailgating all day? Lots of grinding, lots of making out, yadda yadda yadda.
There is no greater character from my sober expedition into Coli than Dale, the Fireball Kid. You see, Dale is not actually his name. He has earned the name Dale because Fireball, Pitbull, “dale,” Dale. When I grow up, I want to be Dale, the Fireball kid.
Via: Guest of a Guest
While we’re dancing, minding our own business, pushing away creeps, Dale, the Fireball Kid, comes out of nowhere. Dale dressed in an unbuttoned flannel shirt, backwards snapback, Jordans and skinny jeans and sporting his blonde skater haircut, comes bouncing up to the front. Literally leaping through the crowd, Dale, the Fireball Kid, is high on life and drunk on — what else? — Fireball.
You see, Dale is the Fireball Kid because in his hand was firmly wrapped around the neck of a bottle of Fireball, from which he periodically took pulls. Did he sneak it into the club? Did he buy it from the bar? Is there a vending machine in the back? These are questions we don’t ask.
Dale jumped up to every single person in the club trying to get everyone to take pulls with him and everyone had the same exact reaction: Eyes bugged out, look at the bottle, look at him, look back at the bottle and say, “Uh… no.” When it was finally our turn, he called us pussies and went on to the next group.
Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t get stabbed.
After leaving at about 2:30 a.m. because you can do that thanks to Bianca (still not a stripper), there was a police officer diffusing a man, screaming at the top of his lungs, about what I don’t know, (maybe Dale stole the bottle from him) and Uber came back to the shopping center parking lot to pick us up.
I only went to Coliseum that night because I needed to see what the hype was about. Maybe because it was a game day or maybe because there weren’t eager freshmen to populate the dance floor during Summer C, but it was one of the strangest crowds I’d seen in a while. Do I regret going? Absolutely not. Am I going back next time I visit FSU?
Only if Dale lets me take pulls with him.
Feature photo courtesy of: Want Tickets
