In writing about the pillow fight that took place on Friday, April 17 in front of the Frist Campus Center, I feel it is my duty to report as accurately as possible the events that transpired up to and during those ten idyllic minutes of being bathed in feathers. The following report is as honest and strictly detailed as my mind would allow.

I was running late. In my backpack I carried a pillow and that only. It was very light. I wore jeans and a T-shirt, but it was ridiculously hot and I was sweating even as I hurried to the site of the brawl. I had received several e-mails, mostly from fellow workers in the Rocky-Mathey dining hall, telling me of what was about go down. I was warned not to tell too many about it, and to keep it quiet. The e-mails invoked particular phrases from “Fight Club,” mentioning the “first rule” repeatedly. You do not talk about [pillow] fight club. Yeah, right. I told everyone I knew. At 12:30 p.m. we would all break out pillows and brawl until 12:40, when we would promptly cease and go on our way. I got to the lawn at 12:28. A crowd of kids were wandering aimlessly about the grass, smiling at one another. I took the scene in, and, in doing so, allowed the start to elapse while still taking in the smell of the fresh spring air. Of course, some kid smacked me across the back while I was enjoying this moment. It was on, then. Through the crowd I saw a gorilla, or at least a student dressed as one, and pushed through to pummel him across the face. Someone had kept his Daddy’s Rolex on and was repeatedly hitting my arms with his watch instead of his pillow. A cameraman, probably for the Prince, was pushing through the crowd and getting some super-sweet action shots. He probably thought he was doing some serious photojournalism, then, as if he were in the Green Zone. I shouted “You’re not in the Green Zone!” but I don’t think he understood. He took my picture, though.

But the pivotal battle was between Stephen Martis and me. I stalked him out, and came up behind and socked him in the back of the head. As the melee started, I casually strode around the circle of inept novices and came up to Stephen from behind and smacked him hard across the back of his skull, disorienting him. From then on, as countless fellow undergraduates left the pile due to the extreme heat and daunting aerobic faculty necessary to brawl for an entire ten minutes, I systematically destroyed Stephen in every manner of pillow fighting. Our battle was remarkably one-sided. By the end of the brawl, which was occasionally interrupted by annoying, novice pillow-fighters, I had totally dominated the fight through the repeated usage of a move made famous by Brad Pitt in “Troy” (that one where he jumps up and stabs the hulking dude in the neck). As 12:40 struck I strode out towards the row of pre-frosh watching in awe and taking pictures and shouted heroically, “This is Princeton!” before turning and smacking Steve across the face as he tried one last time to get a hit in. It was truly, truly grand. Now, all I think about is how quiet everyone was just before 12:29 turned to 12:30 and we all wrenched our pillows out of our bags and screamed and made all the pre-frosh wet themselves. I lost my pillowcase that day, a black and white cross-hatched one that I picked out myself from Bed Bath & Beyond. If you see it, please return it to me.