As we all know, W.I.L.D. was this past weekend. To that effect, I received quite a bit of advice on the best way to experience it and (hopefully) survive it. My personal favorite was from an upperclassman friend of mine who told me, “W.I.L.D. … it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

Unfortunately, none of the advice had anything to do with the sort of things that my friends or I actually experienced.

The first thing I should have known is that you absolutely should not bring anything to W.I.L.D. that you care about in the slightest. Now, this doesn’t include essentials like cell phones or wallets, but it does include articles of clothing that count as accessories. My roommate decided to bring his favorite hat to W.I.L.D. because he believes (erroneously) that he looks good in it. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for the rest of the world, his hat was lost in the crowd.

A friend of mine also lost her belt in the utter insanity that was the mass of humanity in front of the stage. I would like to give Wash. U. students a little credit, meaning that I don’t think anybody tried to take off her belt when she was almost knocked down, but it does suggest that if you bring things to W.I.L.D., you will lose them, and then you will be sad.

The second thing I should have known is not to show up early. Not that sitting on the quad in the collective filth of 3,000 people isn’t enjoyable (‘cause that’s what I do every Saturday), but when drinking is the game, you shouldn’t be anticipating that you are going to be drunk for 8-10 hours. That can lead to some very, very dangerous situations. EST was busy for the entire day, starting once the first person showed up to the quad. Moreover, how many of us know people who barely made it to the show or didn’t even make it at all?

When two of your friends need to be taken home before even seeing the bands that everyone came for, it might be an implication that everybody should probably just wait for the bands everyone came for.

Third thing, nobody mentioned that you should bring snacks. Once the lines got long enough, there wasn’t any way in hell you were going to be able to get any food whatsoever, and lord knows some Cheese-Its or Ruffles would have done immense good.

Finally, nobody cared to mention the most important part… that there was not nearly enough water in the quad. Granted, some bottled water was around, but compared to the amount of Vitamin Water and canned soda, there might as well have been nothing. Given the fact that Vitamin Water doesn’t actually quench your thirst and carbonated beverages make you drunker (thank you, W.I.L.D. tip # 2!) why they didn’t include a suitable amount of bottled water makes no sense, especially because you can’t bring your own.

These are things that freshmen should have been told about W.I.L.D. Of course, if someone prepares for all of these eventualities, it is only treating the symptoms and not the cause of the problem.

W.I.L.D. is nothing short of a drinking fest, and everyone knows it. But why is beyond me. This year we had two very good artists that the majority of the student body had actually heard of. The music was good, and the crowd was into it. W.I.L.D. should be a Saturday where nothing is expected of us, rather than a Saturday we don’t have to remember. We are old enough to decide whether or not we are going to drink, but W.I.L.D. doesn’t have to be about us abusing that authority, and next year’s freshmen should know that.