As with most freshmen, I had epic plans of Mexico dancing in my head the
entire winter quarter. And, of course, they collapsed as soon as I got home.
Instead, I decided to go party with some friends at UCLA. Unfortunately, it was
their Spring Break as well, so “partying” consisted of ten of us drinking vodka
in a friend’s dorm room. Luckily, that friend’s neighbor also had a slightly
more pathetic plan for the night: bringing an entirely male group to the dorm,
henceforth known as “The Ghetto-Ass Mexicans.”
We drank vodka, and they freestyled badly. I wasn’t happy about the direction
of the night. I drank more vodka. They tried to get me to rap. I continued
drinking. I rapped. Apparently, as
a drunk white kid rapping Biggie’s verses of “Dead Wrong,” I was
entertaining. This pleased me.
Then nature called, so I wandered down to the bathroom. After a moment of
reflection, I thought better than to waste my urine on a toilet, and walked past
the bathroom to the door to the stairway and emptied my bladder on that. Feeling
clever, I walked back to my friend’s dorm room, stopping only to spit on the
way.
“EXCUSE ME!”
My alcohol-addled brain told me to ignore the shrill voice behind me. This
was surprisingly good advice.
“EXCUSE ME!!”
I turned around and realized what I was looking at—she stood in the hallway,
a five-foot two pinnacle of authority, dressed in her dorm staff jacket. I
immediately determined I couldn’t take seriously a tiny Asian girl patrolling
the halls in her staff gear during Spring Break, when her residents weren’t even
there.
“What did you just do?”
“What did YOU just do?” God, I’m good.
“What did you just do?”
“Nothing.” Authority: 0, Me: 2.
Visibly frustrated, she changed her tactics. “What’s your name?”
“Jeff.” If you didn’t care enough to read the byline, this is not, in fact,
my name.
“Who are you here to see?”
“Jake.” It’s clever, because my friend isn’t really named Jake.
At this point, I decided my words were flying over her head, both literally
and figuratively, and, more importantly, that I should leave before this woman
found out who I was actually staying with. I walked into the elevator and
pressed the first floor button. She stood in the elevator doorway, preventing
the doors from closing. This annoyed me. I decided she couldn’t stop me from
using the stairs. Halfway there, I realized that I probably didn’t want to use
that particular door handle and that she wasn’t going to politely open it for
me. Nonetheless, the dorm was big, so I wandered off to find another stairwell.
As luck would have it, my friends had realized I was gone, so the one to whom
the dorm room belonged, who we shall henceforth refer to as Hobbit (he bears a
striking resemblance and often doesn’t wear shoes), had come to find me. He
succeeded and asked me where I had been, at which point the RA, feeling
triumphant, followed us back to his room to inspect everything and make sure we
were all safe (read: take out years of being made fun of in high school on us).
As soon as she was within feet of the room, she immediately declared that
she smelled alcohol and demanded everyone’s IDs. I decided this was a
reasonable request, and gave her my Vons Club card. She wasn’t amused. I
considered challenging her to a fight to the death for insulting the Club family
legacy, but decided this battle wasn’t worth fighting and gave her my real ID.
She talked to Hobbit, who, by this point, wasn’t altogether too coherent. She
looked around the room for someone who was coherent. She was disappointed.
By this point I’d sobered myself up, so she decided that I was now the
responsible one. She demanded that I collect IDs, and I waited for her to leave.
I’d forgotten, however, that I was talking to someone who had nothing better to
do than patrol her dorm during Spring break. Not only did she stay and continue
to bother me, within minutes two more RAs had shown up. Now, I’m not sure what
three small Asian girls could do with a room full of drunks that one small Asian
girl couldn’t, but I suppose that’s why I’ll never be an RA. Actually, no,
that’s because of the alcoholism. Anyway, apparently she soon realized how
unimpressed we were by her show of authority, and within a few more minutes I
was
chatting with two members of the LAPD.
Now, since I’m not retarded, I showed them some respect. Apparently, however,
they weren’t looking for respect when they answered a call about drunks at a
college. For this I give them some credit. Anyway, it is here that The
Ghetto-Ass Mexicans return to our story. Apparently, their instincts had kicked
in upon the arrival of the police, who were more clever than the drunk Mexicans
had anticipated. One of the cops identified Hobbit, who at this point was near
passing out, as the owner of the room.
“Son, why is there someone hiding in your closet?”
“Nobuddies hidin’ in my closet, occifer.”
At this point, the officer calmly reached into the closet and pulled out the
fattest Mexican by the back of his shirt. Fatty looked like he had just shit
himself, and the rest of us, including the other officer, laughed.
“Occifer I’m sorry I dint know anybud–”
“It’s fine, I believe you. Now tell me why there’s someone hiding under your
bed.”
“Occifer I promise nobuddies under anythin.”
The officer grabbed the leg that was sticking out from under the bed (to be
fair, Mexicans are more of runners than hiders) and ripped another one out from
under the bed.
“I really dint kn–“
“I know, it’s fine. Everyone go to bed. Except you.”
Naturally, “you” meant me, and so it was that I spent the rest of my night
chatting it up with the police. This was just about the point when the rest of
the vodka caught up with me and my memory ended. But I didn’t wake up in
prison or with a ticket, so I have to assume I’m a charismatic motherfucker.
Still, from now on, I’m sticking with the Stanford bubble.
