The University of Wisconsin campus has always been one of unbridled school spirit, and what better way to showcase this than on the Saturday of a home football game?

Clothed in red from head to toe, fans of all ages flood the streets, and the smell of brats permeates the crisp morning air. From a distance, the sidewalks snake toward Camp Randall in a sea of red ? but wait, what’s that small speck moving against the surge of fans? Let’s move in closer for a better look ?

It appears to be a student. But this student isn’t dressed in the mandatory Badger-wear. In fact, it seems as though the individual is barely clothed at all. Who is this lone figure battling the raucous fans in a sleepy stupor? And why is the student’s hair sticking out at such an odd angle?

“Maybe this particular individual is not a football fan,” you say, “Or maybe (and this is a big maybe) they were up all night studying at the library?”

I think many of you readers out there already know this student was not “studying” last night. No, no, this unfortunate individual had a particularly wild Friday night and is now committing the most mortifying of college traditions: the walk of shame!

For those of you who have just wandered out of the caves you have lived in for the past five years and are staring at the paper in bewilderment, the walk of shame is the more common name for a humiliating return home after a night of passion and lust.

To put it bluntly, you decided last night you wanted some action, and now you have to pay the price by walking home in broad daylight in clothes that have obviously been slept in.

This all-too-common morning ritual is not restricted to Saturdays, or even Sundays for that matter. The walk of shame can be committed any day of the week, as long as you are wearing the same clothes you went out in the night before and your hair has the unmistakable dishevelment only a night of hot sex can produce.

Although this perplexing predicament is painful for any student who endures it, walks of shame are particularly unpleasant for females. For most guys, any day could be a walk of shame, because it is not so easy for the common man to distinguish the delicate difference between simple bed head and the more scandalous “sex head.”

Women, on the other hand, are hard pressed (no pun intended) to disguise their appearances with a few simple brush strokes.

That killer tube-top-and-leather-pants combo may have been all the rage at Club Amazon the night before, but it loses its luster in the cruel light of day. And who can ignore the obvious migration of your eye makeup from your eyelids to your entire face?

But no walk of shame would be complete without a girl’s best friend, that animal that has apparently nested in her hair overnight. No, that is not a beaver clinging to the back of your head, ladies, that two-ton wreckage ball of hair is the result of last night’s round of naked twister. Don’t try to comb it or sweep it back into a playful ponytail, that mess is not gonna be cleaned up until you take a nice, long shower.

And you know where that shower is located? You guessed it, all the way across town, through the maddening crowd of inebriated fans, across State Street and past your roommates’ disapproving faces. But fear not, ladies and gentleman, you are not the lone soldier in this losing battle with pride; your comrades are all around you, shuffling home in their own clouds of indignity.

But what would college life be without a little embarrassment now and then, right? So next time you are choosing to stay the night despite the next day’s inevitable mortification, please remember, it’s never safe to mount your stallion bareback.