Boobs, Bros And Busch Gardens
Written by Chelsea Grint
The University of South Florida
Most know me as the “curly-haired girl who talks a lot”. That’s not a bad assessment as I believe good communication is what leads to the most insightful answers. Among friends, family and colleagues, I generally ask a lot of questions and enjoy adding to discussions.
As far as the corporate world is concerned, I’m an Integrated Marketing Communications Specialist offering strong academic knowledge in marketing, branding, corporate communications and change management, operational development, customer service and event coordination. I quickly learn and master new concepts and am equally successful in both team and self-directed settings.
I have experience in not-for-profit, start ups, corporate, entertainment and freelance environments. I’m a jack-of-all trades, wear-a-lot-of-hats kind of gal.
Hosted and produced by Peter Griffith; contributing producer Rob Wallace; narration by Marie Newman; contributing sound Michael Henery.
In another hilarious episode, we meet Chelsea Grint, a fun-loving young freshman at the University of South Florida, who became the ringleader of the wildest parties off campus.
The moment she graduates, however, those lurid nights catch up to her in a single, sweaty meeting that will determine the fate of her career.
You won’t want to miss this true story, a cautionary tale for today’s record-everything college crowd – Be prepared to relive any and every awkward moment of your life.
Published May 21, 2025
Transcript: Boobs, Bros And Busch Gardens
[ appropriate music ]
HOST: Today on campus, it’s 2006.
Shakira was making a very convincing argument that her Hips Don’t Lie, Justin Timberlake was bringing Sexy Back and The Black Eyed Peas were backing Fergie and Her Humps, Her Lovely Lady Lumps. We heard this all primarily on the radio or on CD. File sharing services like Napster and iTunes were in their infant stages.
The ease of accessing information online was still pretty crude back then. Wi-fi access was spotty at best, and as such, some say it was a more innocent time.
In today’s episode, we meet Chelsea, a fun-loving young freshman, far from innocent, who became the ringleader of the wildest parties off campus.
The moment she graduates, however, those lurid nights catch up to her in a single sweaty (heated) meeting will determine the fate of her career.
Stay tuned for this true story, a cautionary tale for today’s record-everything college crowd – (we will pick one of the following)
Be prepared to relive any and every awkward moment of your life.
While you may change, your history does not.
Will we ever be allowed to keep our actions (secrets) to ourselves anymore?
[ Marching band music ]
This is Once, In College. I’m Pete Griffith. Today’s episode was written by Chelsea Grint. Chelsea is an Integrated Marketing Communications Specialist with experience in not-for-profit, start-ups, corporate, entertainment and freelance environments. But, she says, most people know her as the “curly-haired girl who talks a lot”. Either way, she prides herself on becoming a jack-of-all trades, wears-a-lot-of-hats kind of gal.
[ Bells from campus tower ]
But let’s go back to when she was 19, when hats or even bathing suits, weren’t required. Class is about to begin. Here’s Chelsea’s true story from her time once, in college.
[ appropriate sounds ]
NARRATOR: It was 2006 in Tampa, Florida. I was in my Freshman year of college, living in a world of hot pink Razor flip phones, digital cameras on wrist straps, and the earliest days of Facebook. Back then, you literally had to be a student with an .edu address to even get a Facebook account. We would race home from parties and pop out an SD card to upload 50+ photos and tag everyone we had partied with. We lived life loud, in-the-moment and (luckily), we only documented the things we wanted to.
My best friend and I lived in a crappy, old, off-campus townhouse that may as well have had a neon sign that read “Party Central.” It was dingy and cringy but we had space to spare and a young male security guard we could bribe with a pizza and a smile. There was also a bar on site that sold us cases of Natty Lite without so much as a side-eye. A few times a month we were the epicenter of undergrad debauchery.
Most parties, it was us and a bunch of frat bros. We’d bring the girls, they’d bring the booze — a match made in collegiate heaven. And the cherry on top? A pool right in our backyard. All we had to do was slide the door open, hop the fence, and we were in.
And we did. Often. Skinny dipping became a late party night ritual. Just a bunch of 18 to 22-year-olds letting loose, being a little bit naughty, and living without a care in the world. No phones. No posts. Just vibes.
Flash forward to 2010. I’m 23 and a few months from graduating. This party girl had matured into a budding professional. I had a suit, a leather portfolio and resumes printed on cardstock — I was ready to land my first big girl job.
I landed an interview for a paid Marketing internship at Busch Gardens Tampa — a name that would sparkle on any resume.
Interview day arrives, and I’m nervous as hell. My car was a hand-me-down jalopy I nicknamed the “family heirloom” and at this point in time, the AC was broken. It was 95 degrees with 100% humidity in Florida and I’m basically in a mobile sauna.
During my 20 min drive I’m dripping sweat at every stoplight, watching my curly hair expand in slow motion. I debate whether not wearing the suit jacket during the interview would be unprofessional or life-saving.
I make it to the Busch Gardens office. I’m 10 minutes early. HR leads me to a room and tells me I’ll be interviewed by two hiring managers. I’ve got a bottle of water in my hand, I’m rehearsing answers in my head, and I’m finally cooling down.
A door opens and Guy #1 introduces himself and leads me into the interview room. He’s a young, slim guy, looks about a year older than me, probably freshly graduated. Nice smile, decent handshake. He seems harmless – my confidence is up.
We walk in and he introduces me to Guy #2 — the main manager of the internship program. My potential new boss. He’s a few years older. I immediately clock that he’s one of those old frat bros I used to skinny dip with.
My confidence just crashed. Everything exits my brain. The heat is back in my face. All I can think is, this guy, has seen my tits.
Let’s rewind for a sec, because you need to understand that these weren’t just regular boobs. I had hips and tits by the time I was 13 and no matter how fit or skinny the rest of me was, my bodacious tatas just kept growing.
I’ve since had a breast reduction, but from ages 13 to 30 there was never a time where I wasn’t wondering if someone was staring at my chest. They usually were.
During this interview stage in my life, they were a whopping size H. H as in “Holy Hell.” No lie, these things were bigger than my head!
So yea, there I was, in a tiny interview room, squeezed into the only Dillard’s suit-dress-and-jacket combo I could afford that could somewhat tame the beasts. Sitting across from a man who had seen them in their free-range, moonlit glory.
The Florida humidity had nothing on the heat coursing through my body now. Because how do you maintain professional, confident eye contact with someone who’s seen your entire front row?
Still, I pulled it together. I put on my best “I’m totally fine” smile and said, “Oh hey, frat boy! Long time no see!”
Cue the awkward moment. I immediately realized he may have been planning to pretend we didn’t know each other. And I may have just dragged the memory of how we know one another straight into the fluorescent-lit room.
Guy #1, let’s call him Slim, raises an eyebrow. “How do you two know each other?”
I search my brain for the most professional way to say, “We used to party half-naked together.” Cringe. I’m sure one of us said we had friends in common but hadn’t seen one another in years.
I sit down. The interview begins. I try to stay focused, but my brain is staging a coup.
Slim asks, “How do you handle pressure?”
My mouth responds faster than my brain: “Swimmingly”.
Frat boy looks like a deer caught in headlights. Young Slim keeps his dorky smile plastered to his face. So oblivious. I chuckle a little to myself before taking a sip of water, which I immediately spill onto my chest. Because of course!
Now they both look wide eyed.
My hands are shaking at this point and I’m quickly wiping the water from my top. “Oops!” I say. Then I take a deep breath then answer something basic like, “Under pressure I try to stay calm by breaking things down into actionable steps and tackling them one at a time.”
Which is how I tackled that interview. One awkward, sweaty moment at a time.
Frat boy continued, “Describe a time when you motivated a team.”
My brain immediately thinking: Like the summer I motivated half your frat house into skinny dipping with me and my girlfriends?
Internally I’m yelling at myself. SHUT-IT-DOWN.
I pull myself together and describe how I was currently leading a team of seven women PR campaign for a local Women’s charity.
They switch gears and ask me a few fun Busch Gardens trivia questions, to see if I did my homework. I had, so I answered these with ease.
Just when my confidence is back up Frat boy hits me with, “What are some blog tips you would write for our out-of-town visitors?”
And my brain is back in the gutter. Big tits? Blog tits? Tit blog? Oh, tips! With a ‘P’ as in Paul. Yea that makes more sense.
Time didn’t just crawl — I’m convinced the clock ticked backward at one point.
Alas, I made it through the questions and conversation and onto the formalities of Next Steps. Frat boy & Slim give me the ol’ “Thanks for coming in today,” and the “We have a few more interviews to conduct before making our decisions,” and I’m told to leave the way I came in.
I give them both a firm, albeit sweaty handshake and a thank you, all the while my mind is spinning. I climb back into my hot-box of a car, throw off the jacket and toss my hair into a bun. I’m a ball of angst.
Did that really just happen? Did I really spill water on my boobs in front of a potential manager, who has seen said boobs? Through the sweat and clumsiness did I maintain enough composure? Was I professional enough? Were they actually going to call?
As I drove home, an even bigger thought was bubbling. Was something I did almost 4 years ago going to come back and bite me? Were the decisions of Freshman year going to affect my potential future and a great opportunity?
Only time would tell.
So…did I get the job?
Yes. Yes, I did.
And it turned out to be an incredible experience! I worked two seasons at Busch Gardens, and it sparked my love for Marketing and Branding so much that I went on to get my Master’s in it.
Something I very much appreciated was that Frat boy remained the utmost professional. When I was hired for his team there were never any off-hand sexual comments toward me, or subtle winks tossed my direction. Just as I had grown from a party-going skinny dipper to a mature young adult, so had he.
In retrospect, he knew about my saucy past and, as my boss, he could have used the power dynamic and made my life really uncomfortable. But he didn’t. Part of the internship was traveling to concerts, bars, clubs, etc. around Tampa, where we could rep the brand and spark interest in upcoming holidays and events. There were multiple times I was in a car one-on-one with Frat boy, driving to and from or setting up for these excursions and nothing untoward ever came about.
On both sides, we simply never discussed the past. I think we recognized that you’re such different people in the first two years of college versus your last two, when life and consequences start to become real and your focus is less on having fun and more on your career.
Looking back, would I change anything? Not really. We were young and free and full of cheap beer. We weren’t hurting anyone. We were just living.
But I will say this: When I reflect on this experience, I realize how lucky I was that my Freshman debauchery didn’t follow me into my career. Even though it wasn’t that long ago, times were different. Had I gone to college five to ten years later or certainly now, with iPhones glued to people’s hands and social media being in a 24/7 surveillance state, I might have thought twice before naked cannonballing into a pool with a bunch of frat guys.
Still, no regrets. I hope today’s 20-somethings find ways to let loose and feel free — without the fear that a few wild nights will follow them around forever.
[ appropriate music ]
HOST: Today’s episode was produced by Rob Wallace and myself, narrated by Marie Newman with the sound polished by Michael Henery.
We want to thank Chelsea Grint again for sharing her story and the hilarious manner in which she tells it. Her experience makes us wonder what we might do if our embarrassing past would come back to haunt us.
Chelsea’s in Europe right now and we hope she’s taking a ton of pictures there. Some memories are ones you will always want to rehash.
How wild were you at college? Did it ever come back to bite you? Let us know your story. The biggest lessons we learn from that time don’t always happen in a class or lecture.
Before we go, here’s our pitch to share, subscribe or give us a like. Any of those would be very much appreciated.
Hope to see you again in class. I’m Pete Griffith, back again soon with more stories like this, all from a time Once, In College.
[ Podcast theme music ]