How did I spend my Christmas break? Let me paint the scene for you.

I was at a local bar enjoying a cold brew with a friend. It was karaoke night and a few brave natives were belting out tunes in drunken stupors. I was engaged in an animated conversation about how Texas had just toppled USC in the Rose Bowl, when I was interrupted by a man screeching at the top of his lungs, “I’d rather have my fiddle and my farming tooooools. Thank God I’m a country boy.”

You know the sound of metal on metal when you get into a car accident? That high pitched, piercing screech? Well this man’s voice sounded sort of like that. I think Fran Drescher could have done John Denver better justice. I turned around to see what type of person could manufacture such an atrocious sound and I was forced to do a double take. It was the crazy cross-eyed substitute from the high school.

He reminded me of Mad-Eye Moody from the Harry Potter books. While taking attendance he would glance at you with his good eye while his other fish eye would look around the classroom. Now he was standing on top of the bar, clutching the microphone for dear life and swaying to the music. Maybe he just couldn’t stand because he was clearly three sheets to the wind. I guess I couldn’t expect any less from a man whose highest aspiration in life was to become a substitute teacher.

You know this one time at Sports Bar I saw Lois DeFleur singing “Be My Lover.” Not only was she rocking the mic, she was also double fisting Jack and Coke. She was later joined by Rodger Summers, our vice president for student affairs and head of the alcohol task force. After pounding some Jager Bombs and shots of tequila they called it a night, but not before first grabbing some Pepe’s subs.

College is amazing in its own right, but there are some voids it will never be able to fill. High school afforded me with camaraderie, easy A’s, unbelievable friends and endless house parties. It was all so real. I was friends with my teachers. They were accessible people, not super-humans with five master’s degrees and a doctorate.

If being real means getting obliterated and shrieking karaoke songs on top of bars, that’s fine with me. I welcome it and wish I could see my professors making utter fools of themselves downtown.

Thank you crazy, cross-eyed substitute for making my life a little more worth living.

Erica Fritz is a junior psychology major