The Alpha-Male

Contiki, a tour company devoted to traveling around the globe, has developed a reputation for vacations filled with drunken debauchery and frivolous flings for youngsters clinging onto the last thread of youth.  I thought that members of my group overindulged with alcohol from time to time until I encountered another Contiki group.  In Heidelberg, Germany we met those on The Big Chill camping tour, which visited both Western and Eastern Europe for over forty days.  During the last legs of our journeys, we shared the same camping sites, and we would soon discover that they were not the most courteous of roommates.

After dinner at the campsite, both Contiki groups split into teams for trivia and games.  This was a battle of the sexes, but the men were easily outnumbered two to one.  As a result of this imbalance, there were two teams of women and only one for the men.  The trivia questions dealt mostly with history and world geography, and the games got silly before they turned strange. 

During a conversation over dinner that night, Sam, our driver, told me inevitably that an alpha-male distinguishes himself during every tour he has worked.  The alpha-male is usually a childish buffoon, eager for attention which he eventually receives by being hysterically immature. 

As if on cue, a loud, foul, and shirtless fat man chugged a plastic Coke bottle full of clear alcohol and jumped into the dirty creek near our cook tents. He splashed in the filthy water and made a lot of unnecessary noise produced only to attract an audience.

“And that, ladies and gentleman, is the alpha-male,” Sam said as though reading his lines from a clever Hollywood script.   

For the first game, contestants had to squeeze a balloon between their legs and complete a figure-eight route without touching the balloon with their hands.  The chubby, obnoxious alpha-male in the other group volunteered for the game before knowing what the event would entail.  Despite his drunkenness and overall lack of agility, the man performed surprisingly well and then took a seat onto a backless chair.  Unable to keep himself quiet and still, the alpha-male lost his balance and fell on his bare back.  Then he proceeded to roll around in the dust while his cohorts shrieked with hyena-like laughter. 

From the ground, the ogre of a man threw his nearly-empty two-liter bottle high into the air.  The bottle nearly hit a woman from the other group, but the man did not apologize.  His tour manager glared at him sternly.  Judging by his face, I could tell the tour manager had offered this look several times before and berated the stubborn oaf with futile warnings.  He seemed incredibly frustrated with having to babysit this manner-less pig. 

Nearly all of the boys from The Big Chill smoked cigarettes and sexually harassed the women in their group.  The alpha-male parodied pop songs to bully a girl whom the group calls Sloppy because she gets drunk every night.  They frequently made fun of each other’s nationalities.  One man kept repeating, “French Canadians can suck a bag of dicks.”

To top off the competition, the groups had to devise a creative way for one person to pour a shot into another’s mouth.  As the teams conferred, a guy from the other Contiki tour offered a distasteful, yet undoubtedly hilarious option.  In theory, this method would win us the round, but the only question was:  who would be willing to submit himself to such an embarrassment?  A brave man from our group volunteered, and really I could see no other option.  He was the perfect man for the job, and none of us would judge him for his sacrifice. 

A giddy excitement coursed through me.  I hadn’t felt this way since I dressed in dark clothing and threw eggs at cars with my teenage friends.  Repressed energy floods the body when you perform forbidden acts, knowing full well you are breaking the rules.  I knew what was about to happen, and even though I didn’t really condone such childish and freakish behavior, a heavy bout of laughter simmered in my gut and waited to be unleashed.

The shot was poured, and everyone crowded around the two participants.  One of the guys inside the circle lay on his back and stared up at the crotch of the other volunteer. 

It became quite obvious what would follow when this man pulled down his pants.  He then squeezed the shot glass between his butt cheeks and spilled the shot over the man’s chest below. 

The entire campsite erupted with laughter, and I couldn’t help but join in.  The scene was strikingly funny because I had never personally witnessed anything so strange.  Part of me felt like I was walking in Mia Farrow being raped by the devil in Rosemary’s Baby.  Many of our parents would not approve of this behavior, and these activities were not advertised in the brochures.  On the travel magazines, I saw conservatively dressed girls smiling in front of the Eiffel Tower.  Our group fell somewhere in the middle spectrum between these ideal portraits and the belligerent chaos I had just witnessed. 

The majority of the other group struck me as a band of mischievous, over-privileged savages with rich parents and no discipline.  Of course I had just met them and was perhaps being biased, but they did make a strong first impression.  Their immaturity made me appreciate our humble group.  We are like friendly neighbors who share sugar and flour, but some groups aren’t so lucky.  They resemble breeding grounds for anarchy.