The next day after lunch we received our invites to Pref. I opened my envelope and found two cards. I looked at them...Dogwood and Magnolia. I looked back in the envelope...no more cards. My heart sank. I looked at Roomie, who of course had all 3 cards in her envelope. I told her that Crepe Myrtle had not invited me back for Pref. She looked astonished and said "there has to be a mistake. Let's go to Greek Life to straighten this out." So she marched me into the office and asked the person in charge of rush to check over the invitation lists because she was sure that a human error had occurred (everything, inclucing bid matching, was done by hand in those days). The lady checked and said no, there had not been a mistake.
I turned in my acceptance to Dogwood and Magnolia. Roomie chose Crepe Myrtle and Magnolia. We went back to our room. I broke into tears as soon as the door was shut. Roomie was furious. She said "I don't know what those girls are thinking. The Crepe Myrtles love you." I continued to cry and even thought about dropping out of recruitment. Roomie suggested that I call my mother. OK, remember that phones were rotary dial, and this was in the middle part of the day on a week day. Call home collect in the middle of the day? The charges would be astronomical!
But that is what I did. My mother accepted the charges and probably thought that I had been in a terrible accident or something...the way I was sobbing on the phone. No, I told her...a terrible thing has happened. The Crepe Myrtles did not invite me back for pref. Not being Greek, and not really understanding why I wanted to be in a sorority, she really didn't understand why I was so upset. But she also realized that I felt rejected. She said "Honey, you don't always get what you want in life, and sometimes that is a good thing. But, come home if you really want to. I don't see you as a quitter. And, didn't you like all 3 groups?"
She may not have said those exact words, but the message got through to me. I told her that I guessed that I would stay and go to my 2 pref parties. Before she hung up, she asked me if I had gotten her letter. (My sweet Mama would faithfully write me a newsey letter each and every day whenever I was away from home at camp, so apparently she thought rush was like camp and was writing me every day). I told her that I hadn't checked my mail but would do so right away.
So, I go back to my room, wash my face, and walk over to the student union building where the mail boxes were located and found mine. Sure enough, there was a letter inside. I dialed my combination and took out the letter...and then realized that I was cornered by 2 Crepe Myrtles that I knew fairly well. My face flushed red, but one of them immediately said that they were so sorry about what happened. There had been a big fight in selection session, because they knew that they would be 2 below chapter total after they made quota and decided that they would cut 2 sure things and then pick them up as COB after rush. And they decided that an in-house legacy and I were the 2 sure things and we were among those cut. They didn't think that this was the right way to do this, but they guranteed that I would get one of those bids after rush. Not wanting to get caught dirty rushing, they turned and hurried out of the post office area.
I don't know what was most upsetting to me...being cut or finding out the reason I was cut was that I had told them that I wanted to be a Crepe Myrtle. And all of the "chapter total and COB" talk was totally foreign to me and I did not know what it meant. So, rather than turn the Crepe Myrtles in for dirty rushing and getting my questions answered, I went back to my dorm and told Roomie what had happened.
