College is such a unique time, where you find yourself in situations that you’ve never been in before, where you find yourself living on your own for the first time, where you bond with people you never thought you’d be friends with. Returning this weekend to Homecoming, I found myself reliving some of these experiences, mentally going back to the days where frat parties often directed our social calendars and keg stands were a cheap way to get a little tipsy. Walking through the brick-laden campus, I realized that in four short years, a lot has changed.

Take cell phones. When we went to school, they were a rarity, just beginning to come into popularity my senior year. Where we would walk with our friends to and from our classes, chatting about schoolwork and boys and parties and anything else that seemed important at the time, students today wander mindlessly with their phones seemingly attached to their ears. What a waste, I say.

You see, walking the same routes to class invariably caused you to see the same people every day. Some you knew, some you did not. And for those who fell into the latter group, you gave them nicknames.

The same was true in the lunchroom. Down in the annals of Granville West, we would convene at 4:45 (when dinner began) and stay until well after 7:00, gossiping about these people that we saw every day yet knew so little about. Everyone – and I do mean EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. – had a nickname. Some were descriptive (“Twin Towers” for the well-endowed girl, “Jolly Blue Giant” for the oh-so tall guy that was rumored to have smooched one of my roommates), some were non-sensical (“Square Root of F-ed up Hair Dudes Squared”, the name used when we saw one of the two twins who really did have messed up hair, “Burpie” for – well, I don’t know why, I certainly don’t remember him burping) and some were just random (“Little Chipmunk” and, our favorite, “Little Chicken”).

Though our creativity had no bounds, there were times when we needed a bit of help. Like NBC when feeling uncreative, we created spin-off’s of the more popular names, such as “Little Chicken’s Friend” who borrowed $10 from one of our roommates. We allowed the obvious — the bitchy girl who said ‘Mummy, did you get me any Chardonnay?’ with her nasally, new-yawky drawl forever became “Chardonnay Woman”, the dark-haired scowler whose room was across from ours was “Witch Girl” and of course the all-time, most-famous moniker, one that has endured the 8 years since it was created (at least amongst our group), “Hottie Pants.”

There was little method to our madness, except for amusing ourselves as we wasted our afternoons away under the Columbo frozen yogurt machine. We would sit, nearly crying through our laughter, as we came up with one name after another; we even documented our creativity on a piece of purple cardstock which we posted in the en-suite bathroom, next to a group caricature of all of our favorite schoolmates, known only by their nicknames.

Going back, especially during homecoming, you run into people you haven’t seen (nor thought about) in years. After being out of school now over four years, my memory is waning. I mistakenly called a guy named Brian, Rob. I called Rob, Ben. And the rest of them? I just went with the ‘hey, darlin’!’ route, hoping that they wouldn’t realize that their name had escaped me. Yet in the midst of this confusion, I’d see someone whose nickname graced the hand-written sheet in our bathroom, and know, without a doubt, that Little Chicken was back in town.