Fracket: Noun. A portmanteau of “frat” and “jacket.” An exterior layer of warmth worn to social gatherings or festivities held at fraternity houses. Immediately shed at the door or behind a couch.
Preferably a $7 coat from Wal-Mart or an old throwback from long lost middle school days of Abercrombie. Probable defects: broken zipper, missing buttons, lack of actual warmth, unpleasant odors, ugliness, memories of embarrassing sexual encounters.
Potential smells/stainage of both natural and synthetic substances. Including but not limited to: alcoholic beverages (beer, liquor, cough syrup, etc.), a muddy puddle suddenly transformed into a human magnet as consumption of the aforementioned substances increases, the projectile of the human digestive system via the mouth, the sweat expelled by those attempting to partake in high-exertion activity with other frat-goers [read: desperation], and the tears and blood of the ever so inconsequential proles, otherwise known as freshmen.
High probability of theft, loss, and/or awkward retrieval the next morning. Ownership is not likely to last much longer than the fleeting romance of a dance floor make out. The fracket is there when we need it most, and gone when we’ve hopefully already drunken ourselves a figurative sweater. If you’re lucky, it won’t be left in a room belonging to someone you can no longer make eye contact with ever again or glued to the really super clean frat basement’s floor by a mysterious adhesive.
The fracket, an invaluable physicality, representative of the transient and hedonistic nature of America’s fraternity-dominated college culture, will continue to live on, perhaps, if you’re lucky, for even longer than Kim Kardashian’s marriage.
[Editor’s note: The writer apologizes for that last sentence.]
