The Second Task with a spoonful of sweet revenge

It's that time of year again when the fraternity men send their pledges on missions to raid our house and we in turn send our pledges over there to toy with them.

I basically orchestrated The Second Task for the new pledges. It was time that I took a hand in planning some of the tasks. That and I need to exact my revenge on The Flirt... and what better way than through pledge bonding?

The Flirt had the nerve to hand the red thong I had given his little bro back to me in the middle of Monday Night Football and insinuate to everyone there that I had "forgotten it" there the night before.

I casually let it slip to The Flirt that The Pledges were going to go steal The Hilltop House's composite. I know he's been wanting to send The Charter House Pledges to raid The House and possibly steal some House paraphernalia - assorted trophies and plaques from various competitions we've won. I know that what he really wants is our Charter.

The Charter is nothing more than a symbolic and historic piece of paper which recognizes the particular Greek chapter as a local branch of whatever organization, fraternity or sorority. It's just a piece of paper, generally in a frame, but it is power. As tradition on The Row holds, steal a Chapter Charter and you can demand a request, any request, from them. It's the ultimate power play. As far as I know, no Charter has been stolen in recent memory... I heard that Barbie's Whorehouse had their Charter stolen several years ago and the repercussion was doing a lap around The Row stark naked.

I fully intend on never having The House Charter stolen.

As per Greek rules, The Charter must hang fully displayed. And so it is in The House... but seeing as there were no specifications as to where it is hung, we at The House have ours displayed on an outcrop from the wall about 30 feet in the air facing our twin stairs, but impossible to reach without a ladder. It sits in a niche essentially, probably originally intended for fake plants or useless decorative crap.

In any case, during this conversation with The Flirt, I also led him to believe that The House Actives would be away at an exchange with The Mansion... completely believable since several of us are dating several of them. You could practically see the cogwheels in his brain turning about how he would plan to steal The House Charter.

And last night the plan came together quite nicely. At about 10:30 last night, we sent The Pledges in the general direction of The Hilltop House. We in turn, turned off most of the lights and prepared for the raid.

I can't imagine why all the fraternities try to climb our trellis. It is honestly the stupidest, clumsiest, and most obnoxious way to get into The House. Last Spring, The Hilltop House tried this one and of course we kicked their sorry little asses...

I stationed Little Sis #1 in my room, which has a clear view of the trellis. A group of the quickest thinkers were stationed around the actual Charter itself. The Social Chair was leading that group and they hid behind sofas in the adjacent room, the grandfather clock, the closet we have under the stairs, and a strategically placed table that we moved in and covered with a cloth.

Another group was up on the roof and up on room balconies to tell us of any other movements and possible attempts to get into The House. We also had patrol groups stationed on each floor in case assistance would be needed. It may sound drastic, but raids are serious business and essentially it's all about strategy. I certainly don't want to have to run around The Row butt naked, nor do I intend on having The House's name sullied on my watch.

The Charter House boys started coming up the trellis and another group attempted to go through our garden to the rear of The House. The third and final group was stationed around outside, probably as lookouts for us.

We waited until the trellis climbers had fully made it onto the balconies and made their way through french doors we intentionally left open on the third floor. Then the ladies up on the roof started pelting paint-filled water balloons at the boys in the yard and also the lookouts who all promptly ran for cover. There's nothing like water balloons filled with paint to make a raid a little more interesting. The guys that had made it into The House were oblivious to the fact that their other groups had been taken down. The way Raids/Row Wars really work is that if you are covered in some kind of substance, you're essentially "dead" and out. The group in The House made their way down and systematically took framed pictures off the walls. My phone vibrated in my back pocket and it was a text from The Sorority Prodigy which confirmed their success on their task. I text back with instructions to start heading back and wait for lights and noise. I had been up on the third flood and quietly took the back stairs down to the ground floor and doubled back to the living room where I waited behind a door.

The boys were coming down the twin stairs and one of their phones went off with an annoying sound of a text message followed quickly by a whispered "SHIT!" Then I heard The Flirt whisper back, "why the fuck was that not on silent" The original voice said "Fuck! Ground Teams 1 and 2 were taken down. Just got the message." A nervous silence. It was beautiful. They were beginning to realize that something was up. I love this part. "If they're all on the roof, then they aren't here. Grab The Charter and run," one of them said. "Fuck. The Ground Team was supposed to bring the ladder."

At which point, I decided to walk out from behind the door and say, "Show's over, boys. You have failed in your mission" and promptly sprayed The Flirt and the two guys on either side of him with silly string. Girls then flooded out from where they were hiding and sprayed more silly string and threw glitter confetti on them. I think it was extra crap we had randomly leftover from last year that we dug out of some box. In any case, they were covered in silly string and confetti.

With all this noise, our front door swung open and The Sorority Prodigy stood there with The Charter House's Charter in her hands.

The look on The Flirt's face was priceless. And it's even more priceless because one of the girls got it on camera. I suppose it was all the more humiliating for them because they are the Alpha chapter of their fraternity.

Oh last night was a great night. It's already all over The Row that The House managed to steal The Charter House's Charter the same night that they tried to steal ours. Damn straight. You don't mess with The House and get away with it.

We (and by we, I mean I) haven't decided what we want to make them do yet... but I can assure you it WILL be good. Cheers to yet another successful raid and a successful defense!