To Whom It May Concern,
I am writing today to set a few things straight regarding
the group rental of rooms at your Red Roof Inn in Greensboro, North
Carolina. The specific incident I have
in mind would have been for a period in early spring of 1999. I suspect you raised an eyebrow when a group
claiming to be the N.C. State Chess Club booked 45 rooms and the pool area for
a formal. You may recall the beginnings
of a prickly doubt as you considered that there was very little chance any
chess club in the world has 45 people in it.
That creeping suspicion was likely confirmed when you laid eyes on the
ragtag group of all-white students who showed up with their dates. A group in which not one man had the outward
appearance of knowing what the Alekhine Defense was.
Let me stop right here and acknowledge the validity of your
sage concerns. In fact, this was not
the N.C. State Chess Club. Further,
there wasn’t a single student from N.C. State present in this group. That would make tracing the damage to your
rooms back to our fraternity a bit too easy, wouldn’t you agree? Surely you guessed we didn’t play chess, but
you did you realize that even the school was a farce? I’d like to think that was one more layer
than you were able to perceive.
I suspect that when the music started playing in the
courtyard that night, you were thrown back into a state of confusion. The very worst DJ in the long and terrible
history of DJs began spinning, and the choices he made (I can’t bring myself to
call it a playlist, as that would seem too demeaning to the word) may have
really pushed you back into thinking “maybe these guys DO play chess.” I agree – no person who had ever listened to
music would’ve chosen this DJ. Let me
assure you that we were as caught off guard by the performance as you
were. In fact, given the nature of my personal
music collection at the time, which consisted of any acoustic band willing to
put their music onto CD, the notion that my fraternity brothers would ask me to
go grab my case logic from the car, and come “assist” the DJ was the worst of
omens. I guess when the pinnacle of his song
selections was “Cotton Eye Joe,” even a Jackopierce CD or something by Jump,
Little Children could be considered better party music.
I would like to take this opportunity to apologize for our
ruse. I hope that we didn’t do
significant damage to your property, and that we didn’t also make a stay at
your hotel impossible for any actual chess club who has subsequently tried to
arrange a group outing. Were you chosen
for your low prices and extremely random location? Yes, you were. Were the hand-made Chess Club t-shirts I made
inclusive of not-to-subtle sexual innuendos?
Yes, they were. Were our
subsequent covers at later formals even more creative and classic than the NC
State Chess Club? Let’s say that you
were the launch pad for a terrific way to occupy the mind of many hilarious
young men longing to see their inside jokes take on form out in the real world.
Finally, I just want to thank you for not following up in
any way on the concerns you may have had about the weekend. We haven’t ever heard a word from you, and
certainly won’t after this long stretch of time. Even so, I wanted to put to rest any doubt
you had about what was really going on… just in case you still flash back to
that night every time you hear Cotton
Eye Joe and wonder “were those chess kids really just a bunch of idiot
frat boys from Duke?” Indeed we
were. Indeed we were.
Very Sincerely,
Andy Murphy
Social Chair
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