The first time I really felt like I was in college was in October of my freshman year. I was hanging out in my room with my roommates and two of their friends late one school night when we suddenly heard singing from outside. We looked out the window and saw a whole group of guys singing "Build Me Up Buttercup" to the second floor of the front of our dorm. We all assumed that they were serenading some girl on the floor above us and thought that it was a really cute gesture, so we opened the window to listen and then applauded them when they were done. To our surprise, they turned and looked right at us as intently as predators studying their prey.
"Come outside, we have a gift for you," one of them said.
All of us stared back out at the boys, confused as to whether or not they were actually speaking to us.
"Come out here, we have a present for you." Definitely talking to us.
We started to run to the front door, but one of the girls warned, "Be careful, they're college boys. We don't know what they're up to." We all nodded our understanding and then walked out the front door.
The crowd had dispersed. All that remained was something lying on the ground. We moved forward to get a closer look. It was a boy, stretched out lengthwise on the ground with his arms stretched far above his head. He was duct taped to a wooden post. And it wasn't just a few pieces of duct tape, no. He was strapped throughly onto the post in at least five places.
I sighed and turned back toward the front door. "Okay, I'll go get the scissors."
It shouldn't have been hard to find my scissors. It really shouldn't. But for some reason that day my scissors had decided to disappear permanently and never return. I spent at least five minutes digging through my part of the room to no avail. Finally, feeling the time pressure from knowing that the poor boy was still bound up on our lawn, I ran to the back of the dorm, happened upon some friends in the hallway, and gasped out some garbled pleas for scissors I could borrow. A few minutes later I booked it back to the front of the dorm with two pairs of scissors clasped in my hand. We were finally able to cut him loose.
I don't remember much of what he said, but I think that he had lost a drinking game and his friends decided that he really needed to meet new people. I forgot his name and his face almost instantly, so I think we can all agree that their plan didn't quite work. However, I still have a clump of duct tape that I pulled off his foot nearly a year and a half ago as a souvenir of the first time I felt like I was a college student.
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