On Saturday I had the distinct honor to help bartend Exotic Erotic with a couple of friends. As one of them put it, we were there to, “see what it’s like to have a dozen greedy hands poking your way, probing eyes begging for a nip of the good stuff.”

Mission accomplished. Let me just say this: you people are savages. I’m talking about you, Leopard Print Girl. What the hell were you doing trying to crawl over the boxes of cups to rub my shoulder like a magic lamp, begging “puh-leease!” and promising you would leave me alone if you could just cut the line? Or you, Glassy-Eyed Girl in the Orange Shirt — how did you continuously sneak inside the bar without us noticing you, and why, once inside, did you just stand there, swaying back and forth catatonically? And “savage” was no exaggeration. Take “Brandon and John,” two dashing young fellows in crimson, Hugh Hefner-style robes who were seen pissing into cups and leaving them out so people might drink them by accident. Was this some kind of homo-social fetish, or do they just get their kicks from debasing other people?

For the occasion, we were asked to show up at 9 p.m., when the police cleared all the residents out of 680 Lomita. Obviously the police were hoping to avoid the debacle that occurred my freshman year, when some guys who were sick of waiting in line knocked down the fence in the back corner of the yard.

Since undergrads aren’t allowed to bartend Exotic — “bartend,” by the way, is a ludicrous overstatement — my friends and I were joined by a guy who had graduated four years ago, and his earnest-looking younger brother. The alum was a hedge fund analyst, and he never offered a convincing explanation for what he was doing back at Exotic — he claimed to already have a girlfriend, after all.

At 10 p.m. the first revelers entered, and at 10:20 p.m. it was still mostly freshmen, who were content to hover around the bar and fight over the neon glo-bands. Around 10:30, however, the over-21 crowd showed up, and we spent the rest of the night on our heels.

“I need cups! Cup, goddammit!” we shouted, cries reminiscent of Corporal Upham’s tardy re-supply of ammo belts in the finale of “Saving Private Ryan.”

At the risk of sounding like an old crank, this was a truly lackluster year for costumes. Guys, wearing board shorts or boxers is not only uncreative; it’s a surefire sign of insecurity. (My freshman year, a student wore only a trombone, fastened with a belt, to hide his business.) Girls, why put on a bikini top when there are plenty of more interesting and humorous things that you could wrap around or tape to your midriff? I pine for the days when, as a young freshman lad, you could show up to Exotic in a jock strap and bike helmet and go home with a Branner RA (which happened to one of my former roommates).

By 11:30 p.m., the hedge fund guy had wandered off to lord-knows-where, and we were desperately understaffed. It didn’t help that the same people kept coming back every two minutes with their empty cups. In fact, the biggest surprise of the night was how few people we interacted with. I’d guess that we served about 70 percent of the beer to the same fifteen or twenty people (usually guys) who returned again and again — I wondered if their friends weren’t paying them to wait in line because surely it can’t be fun to serve as the beer-lackey for an entire party.

One of our three kegs was devoted to the group of football players who had camped out on the steps next to the bar. There they sat for most of the evening, muttering in low voices, scratching their barrel-chests and sullenly draining cup after cup of cheap lager.

By 1:15 a.m. the party began winding down. Police slowly but surely began corralling the last revelers out, while the saddest sacks stumbled about, hoping the party wouldn’t end.

“Have you seen my phone?” a nasally freshman whined, his girlfriend in tow. “It’s black.”

“No, come back tomorrow.”

“You’re sure you haven’t seen it?” he asked, his eyes nearly welling up with tears. “It’s a Nokia.”

“Please just go home,” we sighed, our brows damp and our pant cuffs soaked in Keystone.

A skinny man, wearing a pair of white briefs, stumbled over and began surreptitiously drinking half-finished beers. Naturally, we assumed he would want to be alone during this difficult time in his life, and so we left.

Brendan Selby has never had so many people try to make eye contact with him. Give him some more attention at bselb "at" stanford.edu.