All-nighter tales: The ultimate club

Apparently there is a group of freshmen who have formed an "all-nighter club." Once a month - because it's fun? - they gather to stay up late and, I suppose, not do work. Most likely, they play a lot of ChatRoulette.

Well, I have my own "all-nighter club," and we meet a bit more regularly - pretty much every week, in fact. This club consists of me; Don, Hill and Denisse at the Wawa; Eric at the U-Store; Carol the breakfast meal-checker at the Forbes dining hall; the cadre of aged men who swarm the gym in the mornings; and (very occasionally) that dude who gives lectures in the E-Quad at 10 a.m.

But you don't need to bicker my club; there is evidently a pretty large contingent of people who don't sleep - The New York Times even has a blog called "All-Nighters." According to the most recent post, all-nighters might be a cure for depression, which seems like excellent news for all the people who thought Chinese was a good way to satisfy their language requirement.

My all-nighter club holds meetings Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and, frequently - the fratty among you prepare for shock - Thursday (being a math major might not have been the greatest idea). I think, though, that there is something to be said for the Thursday all-nighter: Friday is the only day it's possible to pass out for 24 hours and wake up having missed nothing.

On a typical night, my all-nighter starts in the junior slums. I like to find the loudest pregame I can and grab a study room nearby. The noise is an excellent means of keeping awake, and the ambient brattle of revelry makes studying feel more like leisure. Is Cottage Club having a Sunday Fun Day? So are you!

Incidentally, studying in the slums also lets you get U-Store coffee instead of Wa coffee. This is great, particularly because the late-night crowd at the U-Store always includes people who can't find their U-Store membership cards, which prolongs the procrastination.

Anyway, once the coffee is gone, and the Tiger Inn Wednesday crowd has gone to TI, it's a good idea to move your things to the Forbes or Whitman college libraries, which are both located about 90 seconds from the Wa. All-nighter club members need their coffee and calories, and what better place to get them than Princeton's midnight-munchie mecca? Speaking of which, it's an especially good idea to visit the Wa around the time people start returning from the Street: Not only will it boost your alertness by making you feel compelled to act extra-sober, but the slightly buzzed feeling you'll get just by associating with everyone is a great mood boost. You can even make blackout friends without going out - what more could you ask for?

New friends notwithstanding, beware the late-night Public Safety patrol. If a P-Safe officer who has previously McCoshed you sees you in contemplation of your sandwich options, he may assume the worst and swoop down on you like a vulture with a quota. Before you know it, you're being fed saltine crackers and getting yelled at for breaking the breathalyzer.

Perhaps the most discouraging part of the all-nighter comes when your windows light up, the birds start squawking and you realize you're nowhere near done with your work. But on such occasions, real all-nighter club members know that the solution is never to actually do work.

First of all, the Wa changes shifts at 5:30, so you can go buy more food free of embarrassment. On the way, be on the lookout for the walks of shame - if someone's night ended early, you'll be the first to know. You'll also likely run into those kids from Terrace Club in need of whatever it is high people eat and - if you're really lucky - the still-blacked-out.

Because, no matter how tired you are, there's nothing quite like having an adolescent townie in basketball shorts and neon wayfarers ask you if you know where she left her other shoe. No wonder all-nighters cure depression.