HEY, UM, DIDN'T JOANIE LOVE CHACHES?: Notes From Conversations About Jack and Shit, Chin-Up Bars, and Sexual Cockroaches

CHACH (alt. sp. CHATCH) - n. A younger American male who overly relies on shallow and often superficial things to compensate for intellectual deficiencies, sexual inadequacies, basic dignity, socially acceptable etiquette, and/or understanding of human interpersonal relationships.

For better, more creative definitions, check out the various entries at Urban Dictionary or this stellar commentary from an Ohio campus newspaper, The Independent Collegian.

OXFORD, Ohio (ZP) -- I'm not a college student anymore. I haven't been one for many years. And I never attended the Local U., never experienced many of the things students here experience as part of their development from children into men and women.

I moved to Oxford Fucking Ohio not from my parents' house or some boarding school but from a tiny little apartment in Baton Rouge, one with a stellar view of both Tiger Stadium and the State Capitol Building.

I left behind the last of my college years back in the Pelican State. The days of tailgating, of running over to Ichabods for shots after - and often immediately before - Thursday evening classes. I experienced the crawfish boils, the pink flamingos of the Spanish Town Mardi Gras.

I left behind those downtown trips to Tabby's Blues Box (No. 2) and Red Star to drink cheap beer and party 'til Last Call, the ones made while everyone else was cramming for their comprehensive exams, pretending like those silly reference and cataloging classes were actually challenging.

And there was this one very hot waitress from Lake Charles at that sports bar across the street from my apartment, the one with the shirts cut so low you could see her...

Er....yeah.

And that was graduate school. There are days I'm grateful that I didn't start blogging in college.

Needless to say, I have really no idea about what it feels like to be a student here in Oxford, beyond what I've witnessed or what I've been told.

Hell, I just work here, folks. No ties whatsoever, other than the ol' job. I'm a transcontinental foreigner, a single guy who, through some quirk of fate, ended up accepting a position in this little town.

It's not a bad little town, really. Never once worried about getting mugged, never once have I worried about rush hour traffic, and I really enjoy the nice, peaceful summers.

But I've never given a shit about Green Beer Day, a once-a-year annoyance that leaves my facility's plumbing fixtures clogged with vomit and beer shits. I've never celebrated Ghetto Fest, never experienced one of the famed Toasted Rolls in a dining hall, never had to suffer through perhaps one of the most tedious general education schemes known to Man.

I've never even thrown up in The Alley, never worn a Muck Farshall tee to the football stadium, and I've yet to log a single hour passed out on the couches in the ZenFo Pro Library - all seen as benchmarks of the Local U. Experience. I've never cried over rotting water towers or whined to city council about outdoor drinking game bans, either.

Without having been a student here, well, there are several local phenomena for which I have no frame of reference. There are concepts that I can't seem to grasp, no matter how hard I try.

Sadly, the chach concept isn't one of them.

* * * *

The first time I heard the term chach, "Britney" and I were sitting in my new apartment, back in late November (when I began writing this damned post), chatting away about her experiences transitioning from undergraduate to alumna.

She'd come back to visit Oxford for the same reason many recent alumni return to visit their alma maters post-graduation. While out in the working world, adjusting to a 40-hour work schedule, the decreased socialization, an the inability to sleep past the asscrack of dawn, she'd grown a bit nostalgic. Sadly, coming back reminded her of why she'd said she never wanted to return in the first place. Too much drama, bad memories overwhelming the nostalgia.

Over dinner, she even told me that seeing all of the drunk students staggering down High Street, from bar to bar, made her new boring life - up at 5 to go spinning at her gym, in the office by 8, and hanging out at a Barnes & Noble drinking coffee and reading away her evenings - seem like a vacation from the reality she'd once known as a student.

One of her former roommates called while we were sitting at the kitchen table. I laughed as "Britney" made faces and obligatory obscene hand job gestures while she talked, occasionally kicking my leg to remind me that she'd much rather be talking to me.

The two didn't really like each other; they kept in contact, it seemed, primarily out of a sense of obligation. I guess they missed arguing over unpaid utilities and, er, certain former flings who'd once, er, accidentally removed a showerhead with a pair of handcuffs.

Long story.

Yeah, I don't think I'm going out tonight. I'm over at J's apartment right now. No, we're just talking. No, I've got a hotel room....I don't think that's any of your business really anyway. Later babe!

"Britney" hung up her cell and flung it down onto the table.

Can you believe her? She wanted me to come down to Brick Street because she's not sure if she should hook up with some guy. Un-FUCKING-believable. She's 23 and hitting on fucking chaches and thinks YOU were a bad influence on ME!

Having never heard the term Chach before, I asked "Britney" what the term meant. I thought she was talking about Scott Baio's character from Happy Days.

It's one thing when someone laughs with you. It's another thing completely when a former "fruitcake sex" partner laughs at you for being so ignorant of local slang, points and giggles at you like you're the dumbest guy on the planet.

And she absolutely refused to define the term beyond never mind...this is too fucking funny.

"Britney" explained, through the snorts and tears, that, well, the idea of the oh-so-smartypants librarian not knowing the meaning of Chach was one of the funniest things she'd ever seen or heard - especially since I'd been suckered by something called chachbait quite a few times since she'd last seen me (see this post for one example).

Very humbling experience.

We ended up hanging out in my apartment all night, drinking my last very good bottle of Tobin James, a 2004 Estate Private Stash (a $50 bottle of reserve-bottled Bordeaux. I'm not a wine drinker, but, well, I know how to buy the stuff. Great flavor on this one.) and watching Justice League Unlimited on my laptop.

At one point, she excused herself to use my john. Five minutes later, I heard more hysterical laughter from my bathroom. Apparently, the chin-up bar I'd recently installed in the bathroom door frame was chachish - "Britney" even asked if I secretly pop the collars on my polo shirts and flex in the mirror when nobody was looking, a closet chach.

At one point in the evening, she popped her own shirt collar, put on my Stetson, and did her damnedest to convince me that her impression of the Chachformation Professional was as funny as she thought it was.

I walked her back to her hotel at well past three in the morning, unable to pick a meaningful definition of Chach from her oh-so-smartass brain.

As I walked back to my apartment, the only thing I could think of was Charles in Charge, Fonzie jumping the Shark, and Joanie Friggin' Cunningham.

* * * *

I tried researching the origins of this particular, uniquely Midwestern term in a more scholarly fashion. I tried finding an answer in various slang and contemporary language dictionaries during my lunch breaks.

I finally called a language expert, a buddy of mine, who responded by laughing hysterically, questioning my sanity, and suggesting that I ask the locals - something that, well, someone studying regional dialects and its unique identifiers would do.

She did, however, put me on hold while she asked her teaching assistant - an apparently charming 26-year-old who my friend has suggested, in less-than-scholarly IMs, represents the kind of woman I should be dating, should I continue my professional career here in Oxford Fucking Ohio.

The language expert's probably right. I really do prefer educated women who listen to the Clash and the Dropkick Murphys, have a particular fondness for industrial techno but no longer enjoy going to clubs, enjoy hiking and target shooting, and who sport nose rings.

But I digress...

The TA, a Hoosier State native who attended an Ohio university as an undergrad, thought it was, well, fucking hysterical that that blog guy was calling from across the country to learn about Chaches.

After some delay, the faculty finally put her protege on the phone.

According to the Indianan, roughly 60-70 percent of Ohio male college students fall into the chach category - at least the ones she knew when she was an undergrad at her Ohio university.

Here in Oxford Fucking Ohio, at the Local U., she estimated that as many as 90 percent of the male students fit the bill, based on her experiences partying with and dating several Local U. students.

...Basically, chaches are guys women go home with in college because they're cute, frigging adorable, on the outside... Women wake up and literally feel like their IQs have dropped because they've just hooked up with a Metro version of a Neanderthal... Chaches are like the sexual cockroaches of college, they're everywhere and don't ever seem to go away.

Wait...

So I have metrosexual sexual cockroach caveman tendencies?

I explained to the TA how, exactly, I'd become obsessed with the Chach. That only led to more laughter.

Dude, if you have a chin-up bar in your bathroom...yeah, that's kinda chachish. But you don't seem like a Stadium Toad, at least online.

Wait...

Stadium Toad?

* * * *

I finally admitted that I needed, well, a Local U. perspective, a perspective that I could trust to cure my obsession.

So one night, while bar-hopping at way past my normal bedtime, I asked a few male friends - none of whom seemed to be the type to have chin-up bars installed in their bathrooms - for a better explanation.

One guy, a larger guy who I'll call Mr. Molson, laughed as we stood out on the balcony of this one particular bar. Mr. Molson, I knew, used the term frequently.

I'm pretty sure you're not a chach, Mr. Molson said, pointing towards a group of younger bar patrons.

Now that, my friend, is a chachfest.

A group of guys, all dressed in matching neon polos and overpriced jeans, staggered out of the bar, drunk girls in tow. Their hair hardly moved, gelled like mine but...not. Their faces seemed almost waxed, nary an ingrown hair in sight, eyebrows plucked and perfect. The whole group reeked of expensive cologne and Natty Light. The air was filled with the sounds of hey-bras and what sounded like rich white kids who'd heard one too many Dem Franchize Boyz tracks.

And, yes, they looked like the kind of guys who would have chin-up bars installed in their bathrooms.

But unlike the ol' ZenFo Pro, they didn't seem to be the kind of guys who kept Whitman's Leaves of Grass on the nightstand or who'd list The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as one of their favorite films, or would, well, think twice about whether or not being called a chach was a bad thing.

Oh, so a chach is basically a preppy douchebag? Wow.

Mr. Molson looked up from beneath his ball cap. We were both drunk as skunks, standing in the cold, smoking cigarettes and watching as the chachefest migrated back to whatever horrid, vile place chaches take their chachebait.

Yup.

I guess being a college student in Oxford Fucking Ohio is no different that being a college student anywhere else.

* * * *

While the slang may change, there have always been chaches. We had them at LSU when I was a grad student, at Cal Poly and Northern Colorado when I was an undergrad - we just had different names for them.

Yeah. Chach works. And they really are like sexual cockroaches.

One day, maybe, I'll unearth a good definition for Stadium Toad.

I'll save that one, however, for another post.

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