The college tradition of building a float for a university’s homecoming parade has been a task dreaded by college students for generations. While the homecoming parade can be viewed of as a delightful show by alumni, anyone who has ever helped construct a homecoming float knows that it is a lot more work than it looks. Here are the stages of building a homecoming float, starting with the first pomp all the way until the parade.
Stage 1: The first day of pomping.
“Pomping” is the act of folding tiny pieces of paper called "pomp" that will later be used to construct the homecoming float. Pomping is also the world’s most tedious task once you consider how many little slips of paper it takes to construct a float made out of chicken wire. Not much happens the first few pomping meetings because the already-stressed out homecoming chairs are too busy organizing everything to pay close attention to the slackers.
Stage 2: Being assigned a pomping partner.
Every school does homecoming differently, but for most, a male and a female within the organizations will be paired together. Pomping partners can either result in lifelong friends or someone you never speak to again after handing them a painted cup.
Stage 3: Running out of pomp during week two.
You will waste an hour of your life in the weeks leading up to homecoming because the homecoming chairs never buy enough pomp in the beginning. They promise they will order more soon, but it won’t get delivered until weeks later.
Stage 4: Being fined for skipping pomping.
It happens to the best of us.
Stage 5: One of the pairings gets in trouble and can’t participate in homecoming.
Surprisingly, this happens a lot and normally affects the other people in the pairing the most. The team will either have to drop out of homecoming and pay a fine, or have even less people building the float.
Stage 6: Nothing happens for weeks.
Pomping meetings start getting cancelled twice a week and the float is nowhere near complete.
Stage 7: Staying up all night to finish the float the night before the parade.
Procrastinating a homecoming float is the last thing you want to do, yet everyone inevitably does it. This night can arguably be the most fun of the pomping season, but only if you stay the first two hours. After that, no one wants to build the float any longer, but no one is allowed to leave because the homecoming chairs have transformed into actual monsters. Consider yourself lucky if you manage to sneak away to get a few hours of sleep.
