The REAL Story of the Poopy Pipe Leak House Party
Editor’s note: All quotes and the events discussed thereof in this article are real.
On Saturday, March 19, a group of College fourth-years hosted a house show in their off-campus house on Groveland Street. The party was originally thrown by College fourth-year Jeanne Hill and her housemates, in part so that Hill’s band, Boxed Whine, could perform a house show.
“We had four bands and it was going really well,” Hill said. “I was like, you know what? This is not even about Boxed Whine anymore. It’s about just throwing a good old-fashioned house show so that these younger guys know how to do it.”
Hill scheduled Boxed Whine to perform last because, of course, it would be “super awkward” to not go last, as the hosts of the party.
“We got up on stage and we were ready,” Hill said. “We had this new song that we were gonna play, that was really fun for all of us. I was the perfect amount of drunk. I had my people in the crowd that I wanted to be there, all the seniors had just pushed their way up to the front to see us. And I was like, this is college. This is really college. And then suddenly, 30 seconds in, [College fourth-year] Nathan Silverstein comes up and is like, ‘Stop, stop, stop!’”
Meanwhile, upstairs, College fourth- year Sofia Zarzuela was waiting in line for the bathroom.
“I was there at the scene of the crime,” Zarzuela said, “We were waiting outside the bathroom and this girl came out and was like, ‘It’s a mess, don’t go in there!’ And then, I dunno why, but we went in anyway.”
Upon entering the bathroom, Zarzuela and her friends encountered a toilet that was spilling its contents out onto the floor. Unbeknownst to Zarzuela, one floor below, chaos was breaking out in the basement.
“I looked up and I saw there was this leaking, it was like God was angry and crying angry sewage tears out of the ceiling and onto what could have been an amazing set,” Hill said. “I did not know what to do. You know, it’s like every musician’s worst nightmare for shit to hit the fan. And there we were, and not only was shit hitting the metaphorical fan, but it literally got blown around a whole room and out of the ceiling.”
Back upstairs, College fourth-year and co-host of the party Natalie Korzh was blissfully unaware of the night’s sudden downturn.
“I was on aux in the kitchen and I was sort of patrolling, ’cause we didn’t want people in the living room, so I was sort of, like, guarding that side of the house,” Korzh said. “So I didn’t realize anything was wrong until Sofia and Liza [Mackeen- Shapiro] ran up to me and said, ‘We plunged your toilet for you ’cause we love you so much!’ I was so confused. They ran to tell me that there was a solution to a problem I didn’t know existed.”
Below, Hill was watching the consequences of the clogged toilet play out in real time.
“Somebody’s partner had come to visit from New York, and she was the one that was caught in the crossfire. She was drenched,” Hill reported. “And it did not smell like chocolate, I’ll tell you that. It didn’t smell like cookies or cake or even a heavily scented candle. It smelled, um, kinda quite the opposite.”
The real culprit of the night, it turns out, was poor planning.
“You know, toilet paper’s expensive,” Korzh admitted. “We just put one roll out and thought, like, ‘They’ll ration it, they’ll see there’s only one roll and the people will be smart about this. They’ll use it, you know, wisely.’ So when I heard that people were using paper towels, I realized that the toilet paper must have run out a while ago and they had gone through our closet where they found paper towels. So, in some part, I feel at fault for this because I failed to provide the toilet paper.”
While the night did not turn out how anyone planned, Hill does expect that it will be remembered by all who attended.
“I would call it Poopgate — you know, like Watergate — but there’s already that story from Tank where apparently somebody, like, shit in the oven,” Hill said. “So that’s Poopgate I guess.”
When Zarzuela, Hill, and Korzh were all first-years, they witnessed a party where, midway through, the wooden floorboards couldn’t take the pressure and collapsed into a cavern, creating an iconic night that is still talked about nearly four years later.
“I would love to have played such an instrumental role in the Toilet Leak Party, that’d be awesome,” Zarzuela said. “’Cause I still, to this day, know exactly who made that floor cave in at that party at 123 South Professor Street. And that’s a legacy that’s followed him these last four years.”
Hill agrees, saying that perhaps things must go awry every so often. Otherwise, isn’t every Oberlin party just the same?
“If they don’t remember me or my face or my name that’s okay. I can kind of ease into oblivion, but as long as they remember Leaky Pipes Poopy House Show Extraordinaire, I think that’s important,” Hill said. “You need those defining moments of your college experience, when the first-years who were at the party are seniors and they’re on a walk to Mickey Mart to buy some cigarettes, now that they’re of age, they’ll walk past our house and they’ll go, ‘Hey, do you remember that house? When I got a little bit of shit in my eye? Remember that?’”
