The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

The Student News Site of Macalester College

The Mac Weekly

Welcome to VIPloünge and Hotel Spet

By Shasta Webb

This week, The Mac Weekly sat down with Anna French ’13, Hannah Fishman ’13, Tess Carley ’13, Sam Marshall ’13 and Michael Spetner ’13. Friends since their early years at Mac, this group is unparalleled in its desire to live the “No Regrets Senior Year” (NORSY) lifestyle. Wellness Wednesdays, impromtu dance parties and a flamingo shaped beer bong are only a few of their many household traditions. The Mac Weekly: How did you all meet? Michael Spetner: Anna French was in my orientation group. I was wearing a Where the Wild Things Areshirt and she said she liked it. Then we became friends because she liked my bod. Hannah Fishman: Tess, Anna and I were on the cross country team. MS: I could have finished. HF: I’m trying to bring it all together. MS: I met Hannah cause she was friends with Anna. And they called me George Michael. Anna French: We called you George Michael and convinced everyone that was your real name. Tess Carley: I really did think it was your real name for the first two months of school. I’d also never seen Arrested Development. HF:Four years later he’s still in my phone as George Michael. MS: Four years later and I’m still insecure. AF: Four years later and still getting called George. Sam, how do we know you? Sam Marshall: Well I just got randomly placed [in the dorms] with Matt Edelman ’13. We lived next to Spetner and Jonathan [Kamin-Allen ’13]. AF: I was on that floor too. SM:One Sunday second semester they were sitting in the lounge, not doing homework, watching the NBA. I was just like, that’s what I like to do too, so I started talking to these guys. I was really nervous the first time. Just kidding. AF: Really? TC: That sounded pretty genuine. SM: It wasn’t Spetner. It was more Jonathan, cause I heard he was so cool. Then we became friends. Started playing a lot of video games. HF: Tess, Anna, and I met at cross country. AF: Love at first sight. TC: I was really afraid of you. I still am. SM: That’s how I felt about Spetner. HF: Friendship based in fear. Are there any house moms? SM: Me. MS: Sam. Just Sam. He cleans the dishes a lot. He cleans this room [living room] a lot. SM: This is all your mess! [pointing to messy coffee table] I’m so pissed off still. MS: Calm down! Calm down. Let’s play ‘Point at Things and See if They’re Mine.’ Powerade bottle? Not mine. Canada Dry? Not mine. AF: Ok Spet no one likes this game! No one! MS: Guitar? Mine! I am fucking artsy. SM: Ok, the other day this was empty before the Canada Dry and shit was on the table. Before the shot roulette was there. MS: Ok, shot roulette. Mine. AF: Sam is the mom because he drives a minivan. MS: Plant? Not mine. Spongebob pillow? Mine. SM: I am the house mom. I just picked up Hannah from class in my minivan. HF: Sam and Spet are really good at picking us up. I hate biking. Biking is the worst. I do it when it’s nice out, but now that it’s really cold, Sam and Spet offer a really great chauffeur service. Or I just demand it. SM: Yeah, I don’t think it was offered tonight. HF: Spet offered! After I asked. Is there a baby of the house? MS: Tess is pointing at me. TC: He has the most baby soft skin. Tess, you have a Cheeto on your shirt. MS: Thus answering the question. HF: Anna has a fetus voice when she wakes up in the morning. Anna sleeps a lot. AF: I sleep a normal amount. I would say Spet sleeps a lot. I would say as much a baby. HF: Spet needs 12 hours of sleep plus two naps. MS: No no no. The naps are incorporated into the 12 hours. It’s not easy. It gives me like four hours less of things to do. What’s your favorite part of living here all together? TC: Mostly the hot cheetos. And the consumption of bacon. AF: Proximity to O’Gara’s. That’s a big one. SM: I was trying to get this interview at O’Gara’s. TC: This Saturday night, Hannah and I started and ended our nights at O’Gara’s. HF: That’s the dream. SM: That’s the fifth time I’ve heard that story. MS: We like having parties on Wednesday nights for everyone to have a good time. HF: Wellness Wednesdays are a huge highlight of this house. MS: We like having family dinners. HF: We like drawing on our walls. AF: A lot of family dinners. We have some great cooks. Mainly Sam. HF: Sam cooks so much. TC: Every time I come home, I’m like, “Sam, get out of the kitchen. Stop baking treats for me!” What do you bake? AF: We have a regular old Betty Crocker over there. SM: What do I bake? TC: So much strudel! I’m just getting fat off the strudel. SM: Anna’s seen me cook, but once school started, I stopped. My favorite part is how much we aren’t doing work. Like tonight I came home and was like ‘I’m gonna do some homework. I’m gonna work on my capstone.’ And then I ended up just chilling with Spetner and Jonathan and doing nothing. Do you have any traditions? Or rules? SM: The Flabongo. We should talk about the Flabongo. HF: Wait—let’s just talk about the motto first. Do you have a house mission statement? HF: Yes. More drunk, more fabulous. MS: No! SM: It’s ‘More drunk, more fashionable.’ You fucked it up. Are you kidding me? MS: We use superlatives in this house. It’s ‘Most drunk, most fashionable.’ We established this. SM: And also, who was most fashionable on Saturday? I was wearing a onesie! AF: I would say another rule is WWGD. What would Gilly do? Who is Gilly? AF: Senior Sistas. Gilly! SM: I wore it that one night. MS: I got a present for the house. AF: It’s a Senior Sista’s crop top. TC: We like to think of ourselves as a sorority. SM: We were just talking about how we like to think of us as a fraternity—me and Spetner. But for real, the Flabongo is a real tradition here. HF: All of our traditions revolve around No Regrets Senior Year. The NORSY motto. TC: We like to go around the table at dinner and tell each other what we learned that day. SM: It’s always funny because no one finds what anyone else says interesting. Most of us don’t learn the same things so we’re like, “Oh, that sounds terrible.” What are everyone’s majors? MS: Anna has to go around and say everyone’s majors. AF: I do? Me, neuroscience. Tess, biology. Spet, math. Sam, poli-sci slash econ. Hannah, international studies slash poli-sci. I win. MS: Actually, everyone should know that at this point. TC: We kept the VIPloünge from last year. What is that? AF: It’s the most elite club. HF: That’s V-I-P lounge, but with an umlaut over the “u”. TC: We just always want to know that we can escape to that place when the party gets too big. Which, so far they haven’t gotten big enough, but if it were to get that big, we would just want to that have option. Is this a physical space? MS: It’s an abstract space. AF: It’s in the fourth dimension. Who do you wish you could invite to your house? Celeb? Mac faculty member? SM: I’m gonna go with Matt Edelman. MS: You can. You can invite him over. TC: It’s just so hard for me to think of anyone besides Beyoncé in situations like this. HF: JFK for sure. You can dream big with this question. SM: I want to have him over, and this interview is an outlet for that. MS: I’ll go with Cedric the Entertainer. TC: Still on Beyoncé. MS: I’d actually invite Kobe Bryant to our house. AF: I really just want to go with Keelan. TC: Keelan is Anna’s dog who’s come a couple of times. SM: Keelan’s the only dog I like. And I like golden retrievers, and Newfoundlands. That’s it. What’s your favorite house memory? TC: My favorite memories are just when we are all sitting around pretending to do our homework, and then someone, normally Spetner, starts rapping or singing Blink 182 and then we all have a quick song and dance party. MS: Actually pretty much every time I play my guitar they call me emotional. HF: I like when we all wake up together on Sunday mornings and make brunch. SM: That’s never happened! I’m always in my bed like “SHUT THE FUCK UP! But please make extra coffee! And extra bacon!” TC: Normally, we wake up and make the best brunch ever and then just make a lot of noise and jump on Spetner
till he gets out of bed. I also really like watching movies in Hotel Spet. HF: You haven’t heard about Hotel Spet yet. Hotel Spet sleeps eight. MS: We’ve only watched one movie. TC: Well we watch a lot of TV in there when you’re not here. MS: Ok so apparently everything goes on in my room when I’m not here. The good news is my mom is definitely going to cut this interview out if she finds it. HF: I’m sending it to her personally. MS: The better news is that she probably won’t find it. refresh –>

View Comments (16)
More to Discover

Comments (16)

All The Mac Weekly Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • M

    Michael MarshallSep 11, 2019 at 8:06 pm

    some really quality articles on this internet site, saved to favorites.

    Reply
  • W

    Warren PowellSep 10, 2019 at 1:58 pm

    I am no longer certain the place you are getting your info, however great topic. I must spend a while studying more or figuring out more. Thank you for great info I used to be searching for this information for my mission.

    Reply
  • O

    Owen KerrSep 5, 2019 at 12:08 am

    Hey there! Would you mind if I share your blog with my zynga group? There’s a lot of people that I think would really enjoy your content. Please let me know. Cheers

    Reply
  • N

    NoodlesCompanycouponJul 30, 2019 at 11:54 am

    Good post Brian the way you covered all the approaches for website owners.

    Reply
  • N

    NativeDeodorantcouponJul 30, 2019 at 8:46 am

    Offers anyone obtained any correct success through HARO? It basically feels that the majority of of the reporters installed on the organization are actually from the usa which have no much objectives from other nations particularly in South Asia. Brian, is it possible to immediate us to the full circumstance studies? Thanks.

    Reply
  • E

    Erika FawcettJun 28, 2019 at 5:00 am

    Wow that was strange. I just wrote an incredibly long comment but after I clicked submit my comment didn’t appear. Grrrr… well I’m not writing all that over again. Anyway, just wanted to say excellent blog!

    Reply