By The Chicken
The premise of the Chase the Chicken Bar Crawl was simple: teams of MBA students would search different outside bars near Stern for two chickens. Every time they went to a wrong bar, the team members would each have to consume one drink. Once they found the bar with the chickens, they could join in on drinking from the open tab! However, there was a time limit – you only had as long as your fellow students didn’t close out that tab.
Originally, I signed up for the event because 1) it sounded super fun, and 2) affordable drinking. Anyone who knows me knows that I will never turn down a free drink, so this was right up my alley.
But there was a twist – The Chickens had not yet been chosen.
When I heard that SGov was looking for a volunteer to dress up as The Chicken, I have to admit, my first thought was, “I am not putting on a chicken suit”.
But I looked into it further – The Chickens would be at the bar first, and therefore would have the opportunity to enjoy the open tab for the longest amount of time possible.
Was I doing this? Was I willing to put on a chicken suit for some free drinks?
Abso-freakin-lutely.
I reached out to Julia Berger on SGov and threw my hat in the ring with a simple message: “I need to know more about this chicken suit”.
The plot thickened when she informed me that there had never been a female chicken in the history of the Chase the Chicken Bar Crawl. That’s all I needed to hear.
Anyone who knows me knows that the easiest way to get me to do something is to tell me that a girl never does it.
Things started to happen quickly – I heard that I had been chosen as one of The Chickens, I was asked for a picture of my face, and before I knew it, everyone had received an email with my face photoshopped onto the body of a chicken.
The word spread immediately! People were coming up to me in school, excited to see my great performance as The Chicken. I admitted to all of them that frankly, this wasn’t the most embarrassing outfit I’ve ever worn. I’ve worn a lot worse for a lot less reward.
The day arrived! I was led to the secret bar (Amity Hall) and given the chicken suit. I was surprised to find that it was way less embarrassing than I had expected. Put me in a chicken onesie any day.
I sat with Christopher Cee, my fellow chicken, and Drew Schmitz, our chicken wrangler, as we waited for the teams to arrive. We talked for an hour about the meaning of life, philosophy, our deepest darkest secrets – just kidding of course, we’re MBA students! We talked about recruiting and classes.
At last, we heard footsteps coming up the stairs – the first team had found us! We welcomed them to the bar, quickly ordered one more drink before the tab became overrun, and greeted everyone in true Chicken form. I was more than happy to channel my inner theme park character by posing with the groups and capturing the true glory of my chicken self.
As the afternoon progressed, we slowly but surely were found by all of our chicken hunters. There were some stumbles along the way – sadly, my zipper broke at one point, and the onesie became more of a very deep v-neck. But overall, it was a fantastic time, and we ran that open tab into the ground.
So if anyone out there is wondering if it was worth it, I would absolutely, 1000% say, YES. And if anyone else is willing to give me free drinks in exchange for me wearing a ridiculous costume, call me.
