Leather Jackets

Example of an engineering leather jacket.

Students in second year and above are permitted to purchase a leather jacket from Engineering Stores. First years are unable to purchase leather jackets for both a traditional and practical purpose, as many students may change disciplines or even faculties after first year.

Leather jackets are personalized with the wearer’s year and discipline of study, and often decorated with patches representing the wearer’s personality and the roles they took over their time at Skule. Some patches have traditional placements (eg. the Cannon Guard patch is usually placed on the right shoulder), but there are no hard and fast rules and customization is encouraged.

Ownership

A jacket is considered to be owned by the first person who licks it (the Owner), regardless of who ordered and paid for it (the Purchaser). Notably, the Owner decides whether or not the jacket should be weened; however, if a Purchaser does not want their jacket weened they may bribe the Owner with BEvERages instead.

Bids for ownership are governed by the following rules:

1. It is always permitted to lick your own jacket.
2. In general, it is permitted to lick the jacket of anyone who has equal information and equal access. “Equal information” refers to the individuals’ knowledge of the location of the jacket. It is entirely permissible, indeed it is encouraged, to lick the jacket of someone who has never heard of the practice.
3. It is not permitted to lick someone else’s jacket while it is in a storage location before being distributed, unless the potential Owner has weaker or equal key access to the Purchaser and no EngStores managers/employees were involved.
4. EngStores managers may not lick leather jackets, with the exception of their co-manager or any of their current employees.
5. EngStores employees may not lick leather jackets while working.

Weening

Weening taking place during Frosh Week 0T5.

Weening is a tradition that takes place in the pit, wherein a leather jacket is wildly mistreated to break it in. Students who have had their jackets weened become weeners, and are able to ween others. Beer, dirt, and other salacious substances are poured onto the jackets, which are then slammed into the ground and each other by the weeners. Weenies are instructed to put the jacket on and dragged around the pit counter-clockwise, then take a shower in the jacket to clean the schmutz off. In general, the entire process can take 2-3 hours and involve copious BEvERages.

Weening comes with many risks, including but not limited to: getting dirty, jacket smells weird, cake shoved in pockets, and more. If there is damage incurred during weening (tears, broken pockets, etc.), it is the responsibility of the weeners to pay for repairs. Weening has been a tradition since at least 2005.