[pman111]

OK, as promised, here is my second "startle" story.

This happened when I was in college. I was a freshman and in line at the cafeteria. It was right before Thanksgiving, which is the time of year when the all the Greek pledging activities were reaching their pinnacles. Just how intense it was for some pledges, I was about to find out.

As I waited in line for my food, I overheard a conversation between two people behind me. One was a girl who was (I began to realize) describing the hazing that she had just gone through. The other was a young man, may or may not have been her boyfriend, who was listening with some sympathy.

I will never forget the snippet of conversation I heard most clearly. Here it is, exactly as I heard it:

Her: "It was bad. I told them to stop."
Him: "What did they use?"
Her: (sarcastically) "Pillows."
Him: "No, I thought maybe they used their hands."
Her: "Noooo."

I did not *dare* to look at them, so obviously I didn't catch which house she belonged to. I went to a smaller, Midwestern school and the fashion was for the sorority girls to carry around their paddles. I'll leave it to the readers of this to draw their own conclusions, but my conclusion is this: in at least one sorority house, well into the 1990s, pledges were getting good spankings with a paddle.

It's not just a fantasy...
- Patrick