Alcohol is a hell of a thing, kids, and Lawball was no match for its power.
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I, like most idiot first-years, threw my hard-earned cash at any society who promised to throw a ball anyplace more exciting than the GMB or to provide free prosecco that would not inevitably run out in less than five minutes. Lawball 2022 was one of the only events that my lightning-fast page refresh skills and my saved credit card information on FIXR and Eventbrite couldn’t get me a ticket for. I was bummed, especially when all my friends came back, hungover as fuck yet still frothing at the mouth with their descriptions of the swanky venue and the trophy-wife-hunting lawyer men. So this year, I was determined. I stood at attention two minutes before tickets dropped, refreshing the page desperately and rattling off updates with friends. But when the moment came, I was slow on the draw: Experiencing a morsel of the pain Taylor Swift fans felt using Ticketmaster when the page crashed and left me staring at a screen that screamed: SOLD OUT.
It happened again, I couldn’t believe it, I felt like George Bush post 9-11.
But wait! The reserve tickets were still blissfully available, looking plump and ripe for plucking. I was ravenous, feral, primal in my raw desire. I was getting those damn tickets, if it was the last thing I ever did.
I wasn’t sure what I had expected, the “reserved” in reserved tickets usually screams not for you. But I was desperate, so I clicked.
A passkey, I should’ve guessed. Of course Lawsoc, with all their pomp and circumstance, would guard their shit with passkeys, I was stupid to think otherwise. I turned my phone off and sighed.
But Lawball, sweet Lawball, I couldn’t get my thoughts away from it. As if it were a 5’4 manic pixie dream girl with messy bangs and an intense hatred for Workmans, I had to shoot my shot, even if it was an airball. I opened my phone and studied the blinking cursor under the passkey section.
I tried to think: SlayLawsoc2023, ILoveLawsoc, ButhShadyIsHot666, none of them worked. I was ready to give up, but then I thought of something. Lawball reserved tickets are for subcommittee members only. Interesting. I typed “subcommittee” into the passkey bar, no fucking way, I said, Lawsoc has to be smarter than this.
My screen blinked and I was taken to checkout. Tickets unlocked.
I was ecstatic. Lawball, baby! Here we fucking come!
God I wish I had never figured out that passcode, as hard as that might’ve been.
The night started off well, I hopped onto the bus on-time and the most bothersome thing I had to endure was the inevitable back-of-the-bus choir that forms on long bus rides and insists on an homage to the glory days that was early 2000s pop with an off-key rendition of Katy Perry’s “Umbrella.” It was only when I arrived that the real problems started.
Like every other dripped-out fucker in there, as soon as the bus arrived my friends and I beelined to the free prosecco. It was gone before I even got past the main entrance to the bar, which was probably a new record for society balls all things considered.
Yet the promise of a pre-ball buzz was not yet broken, the 99s I had packed were still nestled safely in my suit pocket. Once I get out of this line, I told myself, I’d be slurping those 99s like it was nobody’s business. Little did I know that I was in a line waiting to get patted down by a couple guys who looked like baldy pav man if he could bench press a cow. They found the tiny bottles almost immediately, and I was now starting the ball by getting sensually caressed and invaded by large hairy men while completely sober. Things had to go up from here. They did not.
Once I got inside and sat down at a table, I started on the dry chicken in front of me. I ate hopelessly fast, drinking as much white wine as humanly possible while trying to remain socially acceptable. Pretty soon, I started to feel good and buzzed. All that changed when the Lawsoc committee started their announcements.
Like many people present at 9-11, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when things started to go wrong. I was vibing, about to stick a chunk of salad into my mouth, when suddenly there was a blood-curdling screech, then an explosive sound. Except this was not the sound of planes crashing into buildings, it was the sound of Buth Shady screaming into the microphone about who in Lawsoc was most likely to fuck one another. I covered my ears as the sonic booming coming out of her mic shook the glasses and plates on the tables, breaking out the shitty red wine during breaks and guzzling it in order to endure the experience, social acceptance be damned.
Once the announcements were finished I felt like one of those people in war movies who has a grenade or something explode right next to them, ears ringing as the horrors of war are made plain in muted slow-motion, with some sergeant screaming for the protagonist to get up. It was the same thing, except instead of medics dragging around stretchers with bloodied men screaming for their mothers and soldiers walking around with their severed limbs, I saw 2 metre tall rugby lads with their arms around two girls at once, letting them take turns sticking their tongues down his throat. Instead of a sergeant yelling at me, it was my friends, telling me to get up and dance with them. I obliged.
Our dance was short, as we quickly became tired of the repetitive, lyric-less house mixes that were probably made in somebody’s mother’s basement. We tried our best to get the DJ to play “Golddigger” by Kanye West, so desperate for a song we could actually dance to that we forgot that he was cancelled. The DJ refused, anyway, evidently feeling himself.
Most were in the mood for a drink after enduring the dance floor, and so I drank more: Responding to each awkward interaction with former friends from fresher orientation week and every one of my personalised displays of terrible rizz with more drank. Until, by the time the lights were turned up and we were all herded out of the back door by several Lawsoc committee members in their pajamas, I was so drunk that people just refused to talk to me. Success! I had fought off the demoralising and oppressive atmosphere that permeated that ballroom. And now here I was, outside at 4 o’clock in the morning, class in five hours, watching my hot breath dissipate in the cold air and waiting for the bus with nothing but happiness in my soul. Alcohol is a hell of a thing, kids, and Lawball was no match for its power. I was, after all, one of the only people who had fun at the ball despite everything, aside from Buth Shady, and all those rugby lads, and George Bush as well, I’m sure, if he were there.
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