I have no great love for olive racing. I don't see the attraction in a bunch of college guys getting down on their hands and knees on a lawn, inserting olives where the sun doesn't shine, and then crawling across the grass as fast as they can, with the understanding that the loser has to eat the olives. I don't have an hors d'oeuvre fetish, an anal fetish, or a grass-stain fetish.

Perhaps that's why I never joined a fraternity. I heard that olive racing was de rigueur among brothers. But maybe the practice never actually occurred, and the myth of young men dog-styling with olives up their butts was simply meant to discourage greenhorns like me from applying for brotherhood.

I admit, however, that I'd rather race with an olive than beat off on a cookie. I learned about the cookie contest from guys I knew in college. This was the dessert after the fraternity's "black dinner," served to season new recruits. The object was similar to that of the olive race. Whoever shot his wad last had to eat the cookies. The aim, of course, was to separate the real brothers from pledges who lacked the spunk for membership.

The cookie ritual certainly seemed popular, but it lacked the hard-core draw of copulating with a frozen chicken. That, I gathered, was the real test of manhood, the secret act that linked college dudes for life. When you could have sex with an oven-stuffer roaster, you really were ready to party.