Wednesday nights are Pit nights. Once legality (or a fake ID) strikes UBC students, every Wednesday like clockwork, they (post Gal karaoke … until recently … rip) descend the Nest’s steps to the basement to wait in line for UBC’s “beloved” “nightclub,” which can best be described as … well, a pit — it’s just how things are done around here.
But what, pray tell, is the Pit? What’s in a name? I believe in the power of investigative journalism, so it was only right that I spend my penultimate Pit Wednesday getting to the bottom of this age-old question and also hitting rock bottom for various different largely unrelated reasons.
After watching my friends hit a couple keg stands in an undisclosed location in Kitsilano, I departed for UBC at the classic hour of 10:45 p.m. Car windows rolled down and the wind flowing through my hair, I prepared myself to enter my true journalist persona by screaming “Careless Whisper” out of the window and preparing a playlist of similarly iconic “walk-up” songs to listen to in the line to really hype myself up for this life-altering moment.
When I got to the inside portion of the line at 10:59 p.m., I was asked to go wait in the “outside lineup.” Already, I was facing adversity. The staff of the Pit clearly saw through my regular student facade and could sense that a journalist was in their midst. Though I made a really sad face at the security guard, I was told to go stand out in the frigid, unbearable cold (10 degrees and partly cloudy) with the rest of the riffraff (my closest friends). However, fear not. I soon made it inside with the contents of my purse intact — this was essential for the mission ahead: digging to the bottom of the Pit.
When you think about pits, you probably think arm, tar, oil, money, sand, of despair: all things you can reasonably expect to find the bottom of if you dig deep enough. Well, applying that logic to the esteemed and iconic UBC Pit, I did what no one has ever done before and finally had my first original experience (suck it, Barenaked Ladies, it has not “all been done before”).
The crowd was bumping. Green Tea shots were $7. The line for the bar was longer than something really really really long. Five other graduating English majors were there. Over the noise, the lights, the unz unz unz, someone yelled to me “this is what it feels like to be unc at the Pit.” Not only had I been ousted as a journalist earlier, now I was being identified as the elder that I have unfortunately become. Sigh, glory days, etc.
They were right about my unc-ness, but I had a mission to complete before I could haul my unc self out from beneath the alluring red glow of the lights and hypnotically pulsing bass of the Pit environment. Digging around in my purse for my sacred quest-essential item, I dropped my IDs and my credit card and my three very necessary lip products of varying shades and shimmers on the floor. It’s like it was my first time at the Pit! Talk about amateur hour. As I scrambled to pick up my items, my cheeks grew hot — not because I lack whatever enzyme is needed to process alcohol (I don’t believe in Asian flush) but because this was such an embarrassment, obviously. What a bumbling fool I was.
However, at my darkest moment at the lowest point on campus (don’t fact check that, but conceptually it has the lowest elevation), I felt myself come alive. The DJ was spinning, cooking, flambé-ing and other descriptors that mean shit was lit as hell — the deck was on fire as the musical stylings of LMFAO roused me from my low point and sent me soaring on the wings of devilish flow rock-and-roll no halo towards a renewed can-do spirit and journalistic vigour.
I dug into my purse. I pulled out my wooden spoon, tactfully stolen from my friend’s cutlery drawer (previously stolen from Loafe) earlier that day. A grin splitting my otherwise chronically stoic face, I knelt in the middle of the dance floor and I proceeded to do what has never been done before … I started to dig to the bottom of the Pit.
And — I swear, I was getting there, but all of a sudden my dumb wooden spoon snapped in half as I attempted to drive it into the concrete floor for the 37th time. Yes, the frat flicks persisted. The jumping up and down a lot did too, as did the sounds of the Charli XCX remix currently echoing off the walls of the too-empty-for-the-last-Pit-Wednesday-of-the-year room. But as my spoon died, so did my dreams of getting to the bottom of the Pit. Like many pits before (I’ve been watching a lot of Curse of Oak Island recently), what truly lies at the bottom of the Pit will remain a mystery.
If only I had better equipment. Maybe one day (and at least one fee increase later) The Ubyssey will be able to afford the jackhammer I tried to claim was a necessary business expense. Classic administrative bull always getting in the way of true journalistic excellence and the hard-hitting truths UBC deserves to know.
