[greekmom2]

August rolled around and I dropped her off. From a social standpoint, she was right, she didn’t need a sorority. Three weeks in she told me “I love it here. It’s just like camp.” Apparently she was blissfully unaware of the considerable cost difference between camp and a four-year institution of higher learning. Concern turned to some panic and several speeches to her about the importance of academics and the limits of our budget.

She soon realized that while cheerleading kept her busy, it wasn’t doing much in the sisterhood department. The girls on the squad got along fine, but once practice was over, they all went their own way. She had gotten close to two of them, and they both happened to be in sororities. They seemed to being having those sisterhood experiences she was missing.

By December she was dating a fraternity guy, so she was meeting sorority girls at his fraternity. Slowly, her attitude towards the whole thing changed. She mentioned she was considering it. Since the last piece of information I had regarding sororities was a Lifetime movie that involved a girl jumping off a balcony at the sociopathic chapter president’s insistence, I wasn’t sure what to think (although I felt certain that was an exaggeration ). All my other stereotypes about Greek life were formed by Animal House – I wasn’t at all sure THAT was an exaggeration.

One of her cheer buddies, we’ll call her Button (actual name was disturbingly close to this), asked Brooke to come visit her sorority. Eventually Brooke told me they wanted her to join, and she was thinking about it. Now, to this day we’re not sure whether they were talking about informal or they just wanted her to consider going through recruitment next year. I don’t think the conversation got that far. Either way, the topic soon died. They told her the cost, and we didn’t realize that the amount they quoted included the cost of living in the house. We thought it was simply the dues which made it totally out of our reach (since we weren’t related to the Hiltons). In addition, she and Button had a huge falling out. Brooke was a little disappointed because she liked the other girls she had met, but she wasn’t completely sold on the sorority idea yet, so it wasn’t the end of the world.