When Northgate calls and the dance halls beckon, Texas A&M students head out on Thursday nights to live up their nights in Aggie style. But while going out may be the Thursday night event for many, there are other Aggies who spend their Thursday nights a little differently.
Jason Finehout, a senior management major, works at the MSC Hotel on Thursday nights, where he pulls all-nighters to accommodate the hotel’s long hours.
“I work from 11 p.m. until around 7 a.m. in the morning every Thursday night,” Finehout said. “It doesn’t sound as bad as it seems. On Thursday nights I am unable to go out and drink with my buddies because I cannot go into work drunk, but I just don’t drink when I do go out.”
Finehout said working late on Thursday nights can actually be entertaining when students who have had too much to drink come stumbling into the hotel lobby. But, he said, the nights tend to get a even more interesting when there are special guests staying at the hotel.
“When Martin Short and Mark Curry were in town for First Yell, they stayed at the MSC Hotel,” Finehout said. “I was working the night they stayed, and I ended up running errands for them like ordering pizza and getting Visine for Short.”
Finehout said he also had to buy pantyhose for one of President George W. Bush’s advisers when she stayed at the hotel because she had forgotten hers. Even though buying women’s pantyhose was a little strange, Finehout said he did get some presidential pens out of it.
Other times at the hotel have been less eventful, however.
“There have been times on Thursday nights when I would just pass out sleeping and not even realize that I had,” Finehout said. “I would wake up three hours later in a huge puddle of drool and an imprint of the desk on my face. But I guess that is bound to happen sometimes.”
While Finehout is fighting off the fatigue at the hotel desk, Kelly Pryor, a junior architecture major, is fighting off the crowds at Hurricane Harry’s.
Pryor, a doorman at Hurricane Harry’s, said he frequently works Thursday nights, which are usually the bar’s busiest nights.
“The line to get in is usually steady until around midnight,” Pryor said. “I have to watch for minors or even people that are 21 and are too intoxicated to come in. We always have to deal with those few people that just want to cause trouble or the people that get mean when they drink and try to start fights.”
Pryor said he sometimes wishes he was one of the people being let in the door rather than the one who is doing the letting in, but it gets so crowded inside that he reasons he is better off just watching.
“People do some really funny things, and working at a club, especially on a Thursday night, you see and hear some really crazy things that happen,” he said.
Pryor said he had an interesting Thursday night experience when he was assigned to sit at the unopened second door at Harry’s by himself.
“There were two couples playing pool who had been drinking for awhile,” he said. “I guess they felt bad for me because I was sitting by myself, so one of the women, who was not attractive at all, got on the counter and started to strip. I had just started working here, so this was all new to me, and I was not used to some of the weird things that tend to occur here a lot.”
Pryor said he has to keep an eye on people who have been drinking at the club and are too intoxicated to drive home. When that happens, patrons are encouraged to call CARPOOL.
That is where Allen Rogers, a sophomore business major, comes in. Rogers, who has been involved in CARPOOL for about a year and a half, has frequently picked up a drunk person or two from Harry’s on a Thursday night.
“My Thursday night begins with the CARPOOL executives usually assigning us what we are going to be doing that night,” Rogers said. “We will either be driving or ‘Herscheling,’ which is walking around clubs and passing out cards. Then we chill until the drunk folks start to call, and that is when the night begins. We shut it down around 3 a.m., and I go home very tired and I miss my 8 a.m. accounting class on Friday mornings.”
Rogers said working Thursday nights has its good moments.
“Sometimes we go and pick up some people and there are a lot of nice looking ladies there and they all scream ‘CARPOOL’ real loud,” Rogers said. “But then I realize they are drunk and would not be paying attention to me if I wasn’t wearing the bright green CARPOOL T-shirt.”
Matt Brown, a senior anthropology major, and Travis Ziebro, a senior mechanical engineering major, are roommates who spend their Thursday nights spinning progressive trance and hip-hop music instead of dancing to it.
Brown and Ziebro are DJs for KANM Student Radio, and their show, “Dynamic Viscosity,” hits the airwaves every Thursday night from midnight to 2 a.m.
“We wanted a show late at night, and this (time) slot was given to us,” Brown said. “All our music is mixed live using two turntables rather than playing CDs one after another.”
Brown, Ziebro and possibly a guest DJ will stop by to spin live music for about an hour and a half, but sometimes it’s not just DJs who come by the station.
“Our friends always drop by after the bars close,” Ziebro said. “Occasionally an unruly drunk stops by, but we give them the boot. It is always a party.”
Brown and Ziebro said they have a great time doing the show, but sometimes they would like to go out instead of being stuck in the radio station.
Thursday night is a big night to go out in College Station for students because it has become a habit for Aggies to want to have a third weekend day, Brown said.
“Drink specials, no Friday classes — it’s no wonder students want to go out on Thursdays,” Ziebro said. “Aggies know how to have a good time.”