The Right Stuff

JOGGERS! Tired of the painful euphoria of oxygen deprivation? Want to give your battered cardiovascular system a rest, and replace that elusively dangerous jogger's high--without turning to drugs or adrenaline-pumped, high-risk situations? Well, the college world offers just the natural high you need: the Allnighter.

Sleep deprivation can take you to mental zones even Rod Serling would avoid, dangling your mind on the cutting edge between psychic revelations and euphoric insanity. And this sleepy intoxication is only one benefit of the Allnighter experience.

Pulling an Allnighter has a certain macho mystique that transcends the methodical regularity of daily trips to the library. It's homework with flair, the difference between slipping down the waterslide into the kiddie pool and roaring off Niagara Falls in a barrel; between strolling along the Freedom Trail and sauntering through the Combat Zone carrying an envelope stamped "BANK WITHDRAWAL."

Of course, there are rules to Allnighting, just as there is etiquette to being a jogger--wearing a jogging suit, not sweats, eating Dannon yogurt, owning a walkman, a pedometer, a pulse regulator and all the rest of it. Following these guidelines will rocket you past mere tiredness into the alternate plane of existence where roams the Allnightist.

Rule One is no artificial stimulants. That includes alcohol, hallucinogens and especially caffeine. Doing it with caffeine is too easy--like riding a roller coaster in the back seat with your eyes closed, shooting fish in a barrel or attacking Reagan for mental incompetence. The true Allnightist prefers a challenge.

Rule Two is eating the right food. Generally, a good combination is granola and beer. This combines rugged "Grape Nuts" individuality with a puerile twist; just the off-balance pose the Allnightist should strike. This breaks Rule One, but then the Allnightist is a rule breakin' kind of guy.

NEXT ARE STUDY breaks. The first one is for David Letterman--a man with just the "Far Side" mentality the Allnightist possesses, or soon will. Later, when slap-happy turns into bitterness at the sleeping, a quick water-gun, water-balloon raid on Store 24 is in order. Nothing lightens the prospect of six more hours without sleep like the sight of a dripping wet roommate stumbling and screaming downstairs to the laundry room, arms full of soggy flannel.

Then comes the Day After. You don't just go to class. You stagger in, using Jack Nicholson's patented "Cuckoo Nest" post-electroshock walk. Your section leader takes on the sinister role of Nurse Ratched as you wink, smile and wallow in your rebellious glamour. Better than thumbing your nose at the school principal, blazing through a two week assignment in one night completely destroys your section leader's sense of authority.

Then, as your classmates plod off again to the library, feeling all the vacuous redundance that accompanies a three day drive across the rolling obscurity of a midwestern prairie, you sink back, relishing the heady exhaustion a mountaineer feels after returning home from an assault on Everest.