Another Berkeley story

My previous Berkeley story can be found here. Stick with this all the way through for a twist ending. You won't be sorry.

Let us hearken back to a more innocent time. Namely, August of 1994. That was when I left the SoCal roost of my parents' home and headed north to the Bay Area with my clothes, my CD collection, a newish computer, and a hot pot, to move into the dorms in Berkeley. My folks helped me to move into a newly renovated dorm room, and then I was anxious to see them out of town so I could begin experiencing college.

Now, the first week there, before classes start, is called "Welcome Week," and it's primarily meant to help the impressionable freshmen to acclimate to life in the dorm system. The residential staff tell the wet-behind-the-ears newbies about how the dining halls work, offer to take them on fun-filled excursions around the campus and the SF Bay area at large (avoiding Oakland, for the most part), and explain the rules for living in the dorms. The latter included stern lectures about how drugs and drinking would not be tolerated inside the dorms. Well, drinking would be, but only if you were 21 or older. And not many of us were.

Did that deter us? Of course not! The word was that one night, a guy named Alonzo was going to have a bash in his room with plenty of booze, and about forty or so kids showed up, myself included. I don't really know where Alonzo got all his liquor (the rumor was that his dad had provided it) but we got a nice party going. I was chatting up a good-looking girl when there was a knock at the door.

Now, since we were stupid kids, we hadn't figured that about forty people in a room that was supposed to accommodate two would draw the attention of the Resident Assistants (RAs), but it did. And one of them, Jeff, was at the door. Alonzo got everyone to hide their drinks, and when Jeff came in to shoot the shit, we thought everything was cool, since he didn't ask us if there was any alcohol in the room. Some of us (myself included) had even engaged Jeff in conversation. Which, having been drinking lightweights at the time, was a bad idea, in retrospect.

But Jeff left, and the drinks came out again, and the party continued. The good-looking girl moved on to talk to another dude, who later became one of my best friends, and I continued drinking. Although I was a little bitter about having the hottie distracted by some jerk, I was still having a good time.

That's when there was another knock on the door.

Alonzo went to the door again, looked through the peephole, and told everyone that Jeff had returned with another RA, Bill, who seemed less cool than Jeff. Everyone hid their booze again, and the RAs were let into the room.

Bill took charge, saying that he knew there was drinking going on in the room, and that the party would have to be broken up before he called the Fire Marshal, who would come down on us hard if we refused to disperse. Bill and Jeff took down the names of all the students who left the room, checking their student IDs.

Later, there were hearings about whether or not people were drinking alcohol at the party, and I learned a valuable lesson from those hearings. I'd always been told that "honesty is the best policy," but I found out that was a bunch of crap. You see, I was one of five people out of the huge group who admitted to drinking that night, and the rest got off scot-free. The five of us who did the right (stupid, in retrospect) thing were forced to put on a "Substance-free program," which ultimately consisted of renting a tape of "Bright Lights, Big City," showing it in the lounge, and telling the people who showed up (many of whom had sports bottles full of vodka) that drugs and alcohol were bad.

I'm sure you're wondering what the hell you've been reading this for, since it's a story about a bunch of eighteen-year-old idiots getting drunk in a dorm room. Well, like Paul Harvey's listeners, you're about to hear "the rest of the story." For, you see, Jeff, the Resident Assistant who first came to check on the party was this guy.

I shit thee not. But he never did his famous dance for us, so we were kind of gypped.

This blog smells dead

But isn't. It's just resting.

I'll see about getting the paddles out and giving it a jump sometime this week.