Call of the Wild

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but girls are going wild everywhere. It’s become something of an epidemic. Go to any of the world’s hot spots, and you’ll likely witness the ravaging effects of the GGW scourge, as real girls go out of control. Symptoms include a Tourette’s-like compulsion to expose one’s breasts, pull up one’s skirt, and, in severe cases, make out with other girls who are themselves going wild. Boston should be especially concerned about the spread of GGW due to the large student population, as college girls are especially prone to doing things they never taught you in school. Fortunately, cultural anthropologists of the future will be able to study this phenomenon thanks to the diligent documentary work of the Girls Gone Wild company, which travels around the country in a big bus making sure that every bit of wild behavior is carefully recorded by digital video camera.

Until recently, I’d only ever witnessed girls going wild once or twice, the most notable time being a spring break trip to the Bahamas my senior year in college. Just when I thought it was safe to go to the beach, there they were. I alerted a lifeguard that girls were going wild, but he told me there was nothing he could do—the sound of whistles only drives them wilder. For a guy like me, who considers the green Tabasco sauce quite hot enough, thanks, it was a horrifying week, I assure you.

But ignoring a problem won’t make it go away, so I decided to see for myself how far GGW has spread when the famous documentary crew visited Avalon in July. To try to help my friends recognize and understand the GGW symptoms, I also brought along my friend Wilson and 30 or so other males on the Mighty Bustonian—our own research vessel, if you will. Wilson was a great sport. Despite it being his bachelor party that night, he was willing to devote several hours of the evening to science. All the other guys were surprisingly enthusiastic as well—yet another confirmation of the wisdom of Aristotle, who said, “All men by nature desire knowledge.”

Early in the night, we stopped the bus at Blanchard’s to buy roughly 300 beers, to help us cope with the anguish of encountering girls afflicted with such a debilitating neurological condition. As we were waiting for several of our shoppers to come out of the store, two girls on Rollerblades skated past. Predictably, someone yelled at them to stop skating, change up and get on the bus. Unpredictably, they actually did so.

Let’s call our friends Paris and Nicole. They looked mild-mannered enough, but, I wondered, why would two girls get on a bus with 30 guys, especially a bus that’s equipped with a stripper pole? Might they be wild? I was anxious to find out.

For a while Paris hung out and chatted with the chuds, but as night fell, a change came over her. Soon she was gyrating around the pole and removing her clothing as our group of amateur researchers eagerly snapped pictures. Imagine! A specimen going wild right in our midst! I wondered what triggered the attack. Was it the flashing neon lights of the Bustonian, the shiny gold stripper pole, or the subject’s consumption of three Bud Lights? I wished I could isolate the variables and find out. From the looks on the other males’ faces, it seemed that they, too, were thinking about isolating some variables. Nicole, for her part, danced a bit but mostly just watched. She’d probably seen Paris turn into a weregirl before.

Eventually, we arrived at Avalon and proceeded inside en masse. Paris, no shrinking violet, was onstage in roughly 22 seconds. But she didn’t flash her boobs. Neither did any of the other girls. A couple of them may have made out with one another, but if that really did it for me I’d watch the Britney and Madonna video clip on my computer 300 more times.

Overall, the Girls Gone Wild party was kind of anticlimactic after the spontaneous scene on the bus. Which makes sense. Girls who go wild according to a schedule are called strippers. Real girls can no more go wild on command than Tony Siragusa can touch his toes. Of course, I could’ve missed something while I was buying drinks. I’ll have to order the tape to be sure.