By Matea Wasend

If Macalester had greek life, the DQ house might just be a fraternity–but don’t think you’ve got them pegged. Five of the eight (um, nine?) residents of the infamous duplex sit down with The Mac Weekly to talk group travels, geology hard-ons and family dynamics. TMW: How many people live in this house? Reid: Eight. Andrew: It depends if you count Evan, because… Ryan: Woah, woah, woah. We gotta abide by the laws here. Andrew: Legally eight. Reid: Four in each house. Jansen: On an average night, about ten people sleep here. Andrew: I mean, you never know. It’s a grab bag. This house is a grab bag. Reid: We’ll say eight. Jansen: On a weekend, maybe fourteen… How did you guys all meet each other? Jansen: Group orgy. Andrew: We all got here for preseason freshman year, and promptly Reid scored like eight goals on everyone, so it was like ‘Woah, okay, well that’s Reid,’ so… Jansen: Six of them were on me. Andrew: Yeah, six of them were on Jansen. Jansen: I was terrified. Andrew: But yeah, it was just like, we were all playing soccer, we were all here early, and we all pretty much hit it off just kinda right off the bat. Reid: And Lucas, my freshman roommate, was the only exception. So you guys all cook dinner together every night? Jesse: Well, teams of three. Reid: Any given night, three people are cooking and providing meals for the rest of the house. Ryan: Unless Owen is on the crew. Then it’s only two people, because he doesn’t really do anything. Reid: Owen’s completely useless. Jansen: He’s nearly burned the house down several times now. Andrew: Not completely useless, though, cuz he is useful for breaking things. If anything needs to be broken, we look to Owen, and he’ll break it. Ryan: He never fails. How did the ‘family dinner’ idea come about? Reid: I think it came from me when I was studying abroad in New Zealand. Ryan: Take all the glory. Jansen: Sure, Reid, just trying to jump in and take credit here. Jesse: We had family dinner before that. Reid: Bullshit. Andrew: To be fair, Reid’s flat in New Zealand always had the sickest family dinners, and so it was kinda like ‘Yo, we should get that setup going on at our place.’ Jesse: But initially, during junior year, [everyone who lived downstairs] did family dinner. Reid: And you cooked for each other? Jesse: We cooked for each other every night. Jansen: Well the upstairs was just that much better at cooking that we didn’t want in on their shit. Ryan: That’s a good point, Jansen. Reid: I wish Evan was here because he gives me credit for this shit all the time. Andrew: I’m giving Reid credit for expanding it to the rest of the house. Jansen: When Reid entered the home it was really a growing experience. Andrew: Although Reid doesn’t technically live here. Jansen: Right. We’re gonna wanna cut that from the record. Andrew: I hope Josh doesn’t read The Mac Weekly because that would get awkward. You guys have taken a lot of trips together, in small groups and in big groups. Can you tell us about some of your favorite ones? Reid: The Quettttticooooo. Jansen: The Quet… Andrew: We’ve been to the Quetico [in Ontario] the summer after freshman and sophomore year, we went to the Quetico for a quick canoe trip. Unfortunately not everyone could be there… Jansen: Not that I’m bitter. Andrew: Not that Jansen’s bitter, or anything. But North Carolina [for spring break] as well, that’s been another staple for sure. Just about everyone’s been involved in that other than Evan, who has, being an elitist tennis player, you know, been like ‘Yo, I gotta wear polos and hit balls over a net.’ We’re like ‘Okay, dude, I guess that’s cool.’ Jansen: Freaking tennis players. Jesse: Quetico has probably been the biggest… everybody’s enjoyed those. Reid: You Geo folks are always on field trips. Jansen: Well, we just nerd out, a bit. Andrew: Yeah, rocks. We love rocks in this house. Ryan: Yeah, the first time we went to North Carolina the Geo folks brought like thirty rocks back home in the car, back the 1500 miles the way home. They just sat in a random room for like… Jesse: We put them in the garden outside of Dupre. Andrew: You go to North Carolina and there are just heaping piles of schist. Everywhere. Jansen: Heaps and heaps. Andrew: Heaps of schist. Just all over the place. Ryan: And you guys just got the biggest hard-ons for all that schist. Andrew: Schist turns me on, dude, what can I say? So would you say that you guys bond over science? Andrew: We looooove science. Ryan: The Geo folks, maybe. Reid: It’s true, the rest of us, not really. Andrew: Dude, we have hard-ons for hard rocks, what can I say. Reid: The rest of us like to laugh at the Geo majors for loving rocks so much. Do you think that this house has a reputation on campus? Andrew: Considering that every once in a while people will just kinda randomly show up, thinking that there’s a party here… Jesse: Sometimes we’ll be eating dinner and people will show up. Andrew: That did happen to us once, yeah. Reid: At least once. Jansen: So we might have a reputation. Reid: I’m not going to say that this is a frat house… Jansen: But it’s the DQ house. Ryan: One time we were all eating dinner. We hadn’t told anyone we were having a party… Jansen: There may have been a keg in the kitchen. Andrew: Allegedly. Ryan: It was after a soccer game and then just like thirty freshmen walked in and we were like ‘What’s going on?’… and sent them on their merry way. If you guys were to think of yourselves as a family… Andrew: Jansen would be the mother. Ryan: Jansen’s the mom. Reid: Jansen’s the mother. Jesse: Jansen’s the mom. Ryan: And the grandma. Andrew: Pretty much every female. Ryan: All the females are covered. Jansen: I like to think of myself as the dominant male in the family. Reid: He’s the mom. Jansen’s the mom. Jesse: I think Evan’s maybe the angry grandpa. Reid: I think Lucas might be a good grandfather. Jesse: No, Grandpa Geary right here. Reid: Grandpa Geary? Andrew: That’s three grandfathers, guys, come on. Reid: We’ve got too many grandfathers. Reid: Who’s the father? Jansen: Do we have a dad? Andrew: I don’t know if we have a father. Jansen: I think I’m kinda the single mother. Reid: I think we grew up without a father. Jesse: We’re lacking a father figure. Reid: There’s no paternal figure. Andrew: So much testosterone in this house, there’s no room for a father. Jansen: It explains so much. Do you guys see yourselves getting back together in five or ten years for a family reunion? Andrew: Five or ten years? How about next year? Jansen: Next year. Quetico 2013. Jesse: I think we’ll continue the tradition of taking trips. We might not all be in the same place, but I think that people will go and take trips to Canada… Jansen: The majority of us will get together next year. And every year. So we hope. Jesse: And people will get together in smaller groups, definitely. Jansen: So we hope. Andrew: I mean, they’re lifelong friendships that we’ve forged in this house, absolutely. Jesse: It’s true, Lundy. Jansen: Blood and sweat. Andrew: And tears. Plenty of tears. Jansen: Plenty of tears shed on a brother’s shoulder. refresh –>