Last Monday night, as I sat watching old episodes of South Park in my friend Jason’s room, a strange and unsettling feeling came over me. Suddenly my eyes grew heavy and my limbs went numb. The girls laughing hysterically on Jason’s bed faded quickly into the background, and Jason himself was nowhere in sight.

What could it be, I thought to myself. What was this uncomfortable sensation I was experiencing? Could it be the mysterious cloud of aromatic smoke that had overtaken the room? Maybe, but I was used to mysterious clouds of aromatic smoke, and let’s be honest, they aren’t all that mysterious. Did the half-empty bottle of Southern Comfort on the table have anything to do with it? Possibly, but this too is a common staple of my life. And then, in one enormous wave of despair, it hit me: I was bored out of my f—ing mind.

I hate to harp on old news, but even after just two years, Cornell’s social life is about as exciting as the bookmark my cousin gave me for my 10th birthday. Each night out in Collegetown and each overcrowded frat party has become less and less satisfying. Even the 30 minutes of knocking over drunk sweaty people on the floor of Johnny O’s has lost its thrill. I wanted something new. I wanted something fun.

So what did I do? Well, I had a few ideas. First, I remembered a bar I’d been to a few times off Rt. 79 called The Crooked Board, where they apparently hold an all-you-eat/drink night every Wednesday, featuring cold beer and delicious buffalo wings. I love both of those things, so that Wednesday I went with some friends to test the waters, and what I found was a much-needed change of pace. A really weird change of pace.

You see, The Crooked Board is what you might call, well, a redneck bar. Especially on Wednesdays, when locals swarm into the humble wooden cabin to take advantage of the weekly “special.” I was greeted at the door by a large gray-haired woman who was short about 18 teeth. After looking at my I.D., the woman, issued a low, deafening grunt. Startled by the strange noise and the general appearance of the woman, I took a few steps back. After a few seconds of awkward silence, I realized that she was telling me I could go in, or at least that she couldn’t calculate the difference between 2007 and 1985.

While The Crooked Board is no place to take your girlfriend, it is a nice place to practice your game on women sporting ripped jeans, plaid shirts and less-than-perfect dental hygiene. More importantly, the wings are great and the atmosphere is surprisingly cheerful.

Though the Crooked Board did prove to be a successful off-campus outing, I knew I needed some time away from the Ithaca area altogether. So I jumped in a car with a few guys and drove down to Philadelphia for UPenn’s annual “Spring Fling,” which is basically the school’s version of Slope Day, except that it spans an entire weekend.

When we arrived, my friends and I realized we had forgotten to buy tickets. So instead of actually entering the Quad on Saturday, which I guess was where the actual flinging took place, we went to a restaurant down the street and ordered some hamburgers and a bunch of margaritas, both of which I painfully regurgitated in an alley next to some frat house later that night. Nonetheless, they tasted good at the time.

That night we went to a party at one of the fraternities near where we were staying. At first, everything seemed exactly like it would have at Cornell, except that kegs were allowed in the house and the cops weren’t knocking on the door every 10 minutes to ruin everybody’s night. I soon made my way up the staircase, where I found more kegs and, incidentally, an even bigger cloud of aromatic smoke than the one in Jason’s room.

And then something really crazy happened. Just as we reached the second floor, people began shouting a phrase that I couldn’t quite understand. Confused, I looked over at my friends, who seemed equally puzzled. I then realized the phrase being repeated was “swamp thing.” Swamp thing? “Why the hell are they yelling ‘swamp thing??’” I asked one of my friends. “Um. I have no idea,” he answered.

Just as my friend responded, we heard a loud crash from the third floor, and all of a sudden, a naked guy painted green from head to toe came tumbling down the stairs and crashed into a wall. “What the hell is going on?” I thought to myself in disbelief. When I asked my friend why he thought this guy was naked, and why he was painted green, he simply responded, “I guess he’s the swamp thing.”

For whatever reason, the severely intoxicated swamp thing, picked himself up and proceeded through the crowd and down the stairs, rubbing paint on horrified onlookers along the way. When he reached the ground floor he seemed to be warming up to a group of girls who were — not surprisingly — trying to get away from swamp thing as fast as possible. Finally, two members of the fraternity grabbed him by his arms and pulled him back up the stairs, where he disappeared for the rest of the night.

If you’re bored of Cornell’s social scene like I am, take my advice and go do something fun off campus, like a wine tour or something. If nothing else, Slope Day is only a few weeks away, and who knows, maybe the swamp thing will make another appearance.

Ben Notterman is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at ben8@cornell.edu. The Scorpion King appears alternate Fridays.