Pirate Buns

I honestly don't know what sororities are like these days. My sorority no longer has a chapter at my university, I'm not active in the alumni group anymore and I no longer have kids in college. So I don't know exactly how rush is handled. If they still have rush parties and skits. I guess they do. There has to be some way to impress those college freshmen with how absolutely fabulous the sorority is. In half an hour or less. We had to really impress them in a short amount of time. So we put on skits. Musical skits.

We got scripts from the head honchos, who had taken real plays and made them into our own sorority versions. I don't know how musical the other sororities were but we were the singin' sorority (although I couldn't sing) and all our skits were musicals. I LOVED performing (even though I couldn't sing) so I was generally in the skits. In hindsight, I guess as I was belting out the songs, the others just sang a little louder to drown me out.

One fall we put on our own version of "Peter Pan". I wasn't talented enough (in case you didn't get it yet - I can't sing) to be one of the stars but I was one of the pirates. Although I can remember a lot of the songs we sang, I can't remember the pirate song. But I do have a very distinct memory of that time.

We were practicing in the basement. It was summer so we all had on shorts and, at one point in the song, we had to bend over, pick up our swords and brandish them. (yes, we were seriously on our way to Broadway) Every time we bent over to pick up the swords, a couple of sorority sisters who were watching the practice would laugh hysterically and whisper something. I couldn't quite hear what they were saying. Pirate...something. Pirate...ones? Pirate...funs?

I never would have figured it out. And then, kindly (because we were sorority sisters and we did actually like each other - most of us), someone finally told me the truth.

Because these were the days before skin cancer became the buzzwords of the day and nobody in their right mind put on sunblock (the only lotion we rubbed on while sunbathing was to encourage a deeper, darker tan), I had a beautiful, golden tan. My long, slim (sigh) legs were darkly tanned. But when I leaned over, my white short shorts (again, sigh) were riding up so you could see my white buns which had been hidden by my bathing suit.

So, pirate buns. They were saying pirate buns. Every time I bent over, I was showing my pirate buns. I'm not sure whether it is more embarrassing that my buns where so white they were creating a spectacle or that my shorts were so short, I was showing them when I bent over.

Anyway. I'm sure they were just jealous of my singing.