Read-aloud uses AI-generated Orakel narrator voices when available. Voice names are Orakel styles, not provider names.
Book: Stories by Mike Doyle Subtitle: An Orakel Family Archive Edition Author: Mike Doyle Story: Strange Events at the Phi Kappa Phi Initiation Banquet Mode: Author-owned family archive companion. Boundary: Preserve the story's original wording and family-memory context. Do not invent biographical facts. When asked for context beyond the approved story text, say what is known from the archive and what would need family confirmation.
Spoiler rule: Stay inside this story unless the reader explicitly asks about the full collection. Approved story text: There were hard thunderstorms on the night of April 9 and perhaps that had somewhat to do with the strange events that occurred at the Phi Kappa Phi initiation banquet at the University of Arkansas. The Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society is a prestigious honor society, usually allowing only those persons of highest academic credentials to become members.
The high academic credentials suggest a higher than average degree of intelligence. They only suggest. There's no guarantee. The initiation banquet was proceeding smoothly, with exceeding boredom, through the various colleges of the university. The initiates from a college would be introduced, receive their certificate of membership and then the group would wait patiently for their well deserved applause. Things continued in this orderly, boring fashion until the Graduate College initiates became members. Mrs.
Linnia Doyle whose husband Michael, was a newly initiated member, was a guest at the banquet. Linnia stood up to applaud. Whether this was to offer her husband (Mike) a standing ovation or to straighten her undergarments isn't known and probably shouldn't be examined. When Linnia stood so suddenly she became light-headed and began to imitate her niece, Sarah Jane. Linnia leaped upon her chair, grabbed her spoon as a prop microphone and shouted," Look at me, everybody!
Watch, everyone!!" She started to sing and dance. Her choice of songs offered a jarring note to a shaky performance. The dance wasn't much. The song was, "Love Lifted Me". When she finished the first line, " I was sinking deep in sin...", at least 14 of these honor students rushed en masse to consume her tea, water and coffee. As it turned out they were incorrect in assuming that one or all of Linnia's drinks had been spiked and spiked heavily.
The 14 honor students began to scuffle over the drinks and Linnia was knocked off of her chair. At this point some people who had remained seated in a state of stun, began to have a religious experience. This was evident because as Linnia fell from her chair, several, nay, many of these people were heard to mutter, "Thank God." And they meant it. When the 14 honor students realized that not all of them could have Linnia's drinks then fist-fighting began in earnest and excitement spread throughout the room.
Women fainted and strong men wept with abandon (intelligent people are high strung) at the chaos that was sweeping the room. One young couple (later identified as Fred and Freda) jumped up on their table and started dancing a wild gypsy dance amidst leftover cheesecake and apple pie slices. Dishes were flying in every direction as they danced while each held the end of a scarf in their teeth. They added a stylized knife fight to the routine and frightened three older women into hysterics.
It was generally supposed that Fred and Freda used the excitement as an excuse to engage in behavior that is normally not seen at Phi Kappa Phi initiation banquets. Or at other formal public functions for that matter. The 14 honor students had begun to calm down, at least the conscious ones had, the unconscious ones had lost interest in the proceedings some time before. Linnia raised up from a pile of unconscious honor students and asked in a faint, surprised voice, " Did you really like it that much?
I can do an encore if you'd like." Her only reply was a deafening silence and the president of the chapter was heard to tell Mike with stony calm, " You're out of the club, mister." As if in agreement the thunderstorms also subsided and Mike took his wife and they slowly shuffled off into the damp dark. The last anyone heard was Linnia's plaintive, " Can we stop at Braum's for ice cream?"