Life on the Street: Eating club officers reveal the perks of mansion-living

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a multi-million dollar mansion with a bunch of your best friends, where you could spend your days dining on food prepared by a professional chef and otherwise use the space to throw gigantic parties for hundreds of kids on a weekly basis?

For a select few University students — also known as eating club officers — this dream is a reality. As outgoing Cottage bicker chair Gianfranco Tripicchio '04 explains, life as an officer is just about as good as it gets.

"Screw next year," he said. "I will never live in a bigger building, unless it's a prison — it's all downhill from here."

Surveyed by email over Spring Break, outgoing club officers — who will continue to reside in their clubs through May — took breaks from their theses to share their favorite experiences living on Prospect Ave.

And apparently living in a big building is the least of the benefits of an eating club officer's life.

"You learn an incredible amount about how to deal with people," Colonial's president Mike McFadden '04 explained. "You are also in charge of a huge budget that you can blow on anything you want. One hundred industrial size cans of chocolate pudding for pudding wrestling? No problem."

Cap and Gown's house manager Josh McCaughey '04 revealed his favorite perks of the job: "Digital cable, and the taproom."

For Tripicchio, the perks are extensive.

In addition to enjoying "living in a big f—-ing house," he reported taking pleasure in "standing at the door and deciding whether people get to party with me based solely on my first impression of them."

"Can't judge a book by its cover, my ass," he joked.

Yet there are some limitations even to what eating club officers can do with their all-powerful positions.

"I'd heard stories about how being an officer would get me all this play," Tripicchio said. "Either people were lying, or I have the game of a Turkish monk with buckteeth and a BO problem."

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"I guess what I mean is, I'm just still waiting for it to work," he said.

But some officers seem to be more effective than Tripicchio in capitalizing on their officer status.

According to Ivy Club's Vice President Sabrina Mallick '04, "The males in my hallways are studs . . . Plenty of times I have had young women knocking on my door looking for one of my male roommates."

Mallick has four male housemates in Ivy, with only bicker chair Teniqua Crawford '04 helping to counteract the high testosterone levels.

But Mallick reported that despite the incessant knocking, "I like having male roommates — they aren't petty or high drama or feel neglected if you don't hang out with them 24/7. Also, there are so many funny things that go down living here — I could write a book."

Some of Charter Club's officers feel their club would make for a hit reality series.

"It sort of reminds me of 'The Real World' TV show," said Liz Bramwell '04, Charter treasurer.

Though in the MTV show everyone argues, most eating club officers deny accusations of catfighting.

"We get along great," Cottage's social chair Mike Haarlow '04 said, adding, "Living with the other officers is by far the best part."

But not all officers are as sentimental in describing the "best part" of living in their club.

According to Quad's president Corey Sanders '04, his favorite aspect of "Living in the eating club [is that it] makes it possible to not leave the house all day because I can eat and sleep and party all in the same house."

With everything they need right in one locale — including professionally prepared cuisine — many officers report having succumbed to severe laziness.

"We have all got fat because we eat the club donuts and pastries when they are delivered at night," said Crawford of the Ivy officers. "This is compounded by the fact that when we go to the 'Wa we don't even walk — we drive."

In fact, many of these drivers-to-the-'Wa also reported they don't even brave the trek across the Street to other clubs on weekends.

"I don't like walking," Cottage's Tripicchio summed up. "Every now and then I leave the building for school breaks and holidays and the like."

Sanders said: "When I was an [active] officer of the club, I never went [to other clubs] — not once in a year!"

Cottage's Haarlow confessed he goes to other clubs — but "not too much — kind of like keeping it in the family."

But some officers enjoy the respite from their own clubs' responsibilities.

"It's nice to leave here because when I am here all too often someone is asking me to put another keg on, or . . . they want me to get a friend of theirs in, so I'd rather not be here most of the time so I can not be asked to do things," Mallick explained.

The role of an eating club officer does come with quite a few things to do — in addition to keg-changing.

After all, top club officers can be held responsible for all drunken falls down the stairs, loud 4 a.m. dance parties and, of course, underage drinking.

As McFadden explained, "Being an eating club officer is a huge responsibility because you are in charge of making your club an awesome place to be while ensuring that you don't get arrested for doing anything illegal."

But some officers have devised foolproof, 100-percent guaranteed strategies for avoiding arrest.

"When the cops come, I act real drunk and leave," Tripicchio joked.

Brian McKenna '04, Cloister Inn's outing president, also seems unconcerned about potential run-ins with the law.

"My responsibilities now consist of: living here, starting and finishing my thesis within the next two weeks, [and] making sure that I have absolutely no responsibility on party nights whatsoever," he noted.

While McKenna might not have legal responsibilities now that his active officer duties have ended, it might be difficult to get much work done on that thesis with all the partying downstairs.

According to Bramwell, attempts to study at Charter are often challenging, as "the floor does vibrate sometimes."

But Tripicchio explained he does not experience this problem at Cottage, since, "I don't do work. That's why I got elected."

While studying may be difficult, there are times when the clubs become surprisingly quiet. McCaughey reported he has at times been the only person present in all of Cap — "and it was great." "Nice and peaceful," he added.

When such rare moments alone occur, the officers know how to take advantage.

"I walk around naked in our library," Tripicchio confessed. "F. Scott Fitzgerald might've written a book up there, but I bet he never pranced around in his b-day suit," he asserted, adding, "And yes, I sat in ALL the chairs."

But life in the clubs isn't all free and easy because you never know when visitors will arrive.

"Last year, in a dorm room where only my roommates saw me, I went months without showering," Tripicchio revealed. "This year I'm clean all the time. It really sucks."

At least maintaining this high standard of hygiene is made easy by the clubs' privately cleaned bathrooms.

Ivy's Crawford said next year she will miss "having the girls' officer bathroom cleaned every day."

It's not only the bathrooms — but the bedrooms — that outgoing officers will miss.

Some Colonial officer bedrooms "range from 280 sq. ft. singles . . . to one three-room double that totals 650 square feet," McFadden explained.

With such amazing benefits it's unsurprising that many officers report feeling somewhat embarrassed to reveal their plush living situations to non-Princetonians.

"I already go to Princeton and that is snobby enough," Sanders explained. "I don't need to add anything to that to become an ass—— with my friends from other schools."

Officers who have attempted to describe their residences to friends from home often have difficulties conveying the essence of their eating club positions.

"My best friend from high school thinks I run meetings where we try different foods like 'Wow' Doritos and discuss them," McKenna noted.

Mallick explained this lack of comprehension: "I feel like our social system is weird and unique . . . and when you try to describe it to someone on the outside, it's hard not to sound like some sort of jerk."

But Tripicchio takes a different perspective.

Asked if he ever bragged to friends from other schools about living in a mansion, Tripicchio said, "Absolutely. I have them visit, but I don't let them touch anything because only Princeton people deserve to touch such nice stuff. I had one friend who hadn't eaten in days, and he wanted to eat in our dining hall."

"But I had him wait outside, then I gave him the scraps from my meal . . . because I'm not too out of touch with reality from all the elitism and whatnot, I mean even from students from state school gotta eat right?" he joked.

Perhaps it's not Tripicchio's fault he seems a tad "out of touch with reality." Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how the senior officers will fare in next year's transition from "The Real World" to the real world.

"Going from being an officer to an analyst will um, suck," lamented Haarlow. "A cramped apartment in New York? I dread the thought."

Some officers do not even aspire to the luxury of cramped apartments. "At this rate, I see my living situation next year involving a lot of flattened cardboard and grates over heating vents," McKenna said.

But a few officers remain optimistic as they enter their final months in the mansions they have called home for the past year.

"I think that the best of living at Ivy is yet to come," Mallick said. "We're going to finally revel in being seniors come post-thesis." One can only hope Tripicchio's reveling involves clothing.