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If you offered to host a Yale student on your couch or floor this weekend, you might be a little confused about the proper etiquette. Sure, you’d like to seem like a gracious host — and maybe secure yourself a spot on their floor next year — but this weekend is about rivalry, not manners. You must keep your guest/rival on their toes; your school pride is at stake! If you’re searching frantically for ways to assert your superiority while not descending to overt hostility, we have some ideas to add to your to-do list. (We realize that the pre-HY weekend workload is never light, so sorry, but you’re welcome.)

Give them a fake curfew.

If you’re an upperclassman, skip ahead. This particular trick only works if you live in the Yard. (So this isn’t for the Union Dorm folks, either.) As they always do during particularly high-traffic weekends, the gates to the Yard close to all non-HUID folk at some nebulous time after dark. (There’s definitely an official time that they close, but I no longer live in the Yard, so I’ve stopped caring.) Inform your guest that this year’s gate closure has been set obscenely early, and they’ll have no choice but to believe you and skip the nighttime festivities; after all, the sun sets past 4:30 p.m. these days anyway. Alternatively, tell them that they’re free to stay out of the Yard until 2 a.m., and place bets with your friends on whether they’ll make it back to sleep on your floorboards after all.

Treat them like a princess.

Not Sleeping Beauty, though. For this weekend, you’ll need to reference “The Princess and the Pea.” Assemble every spare blanket you can muster in a tantalizing display of your generosity and prosperity, but slip your Harvard College pin underneath it all. (With the protective cover on, please! We do not condone stabbing.) Your hostee’s night of sleep will suffer, but they won’t be able to complain without seeming super high-maintenance.

Let them leave their sleeping bags at home.

And roll out the red carpet for them instead! By red carpet, we mean your standard-issue Veritas picnic blanket, which (a) has been washed a total of zero to one times, (b) is rather thin, and (c) will force them to dream of the Crimson Wave all night long.

Express polite interest in their school.

How’s Handsome Dan? How many Handsome Dans have there been? Why have there been so many Handsome Dans? Do you think that there have ever been multiple Handsome Dans at once? Would you take a photo of me with Handsome Dan? What’s Handsome Dan’s favorite food? What’s his favorite color? Where does Handsome Dan live? Where’s he staying over the weekend? Is he an early bird or a night owl? Do you think he would let me pet him? Who would win in a fight, Handsome Dan or a turkey?

Sabotage their Game Day apparel.

This one feels rather mean-spirited, so let’s speak in hypotheticals. Perhaps you’ll guide your guest to the dining hall on the morning of The Game for a questionably delicious breakfast. Maybe you’ll guide them through the lines to gather some sustenance and then to the drink station for some much-needed caffeine. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll start serving yourself a glass of cranberry cocktail only to — oopsie! — fall over and spill it all over their clothes, leaving their Yale blues a bit more Crimson. And then, maybe, they’ll be forced to sit in the Yale student section wearing a mix of red, blue, and purple, looking a little bit like a crazy person, because it will be far too cold to sacrifice a layer…

Feel free to try all or none of the ideas on this list out on your guest. Just please don’t attribute them to us if your hostee turns from unsuspecting to very suspicious; we’d rather not be accosted by indignant Yalies while we shiver in the stadium this Saturday.