dumbassia: April 2011

Last night, a group of friends and I drove two hours to Mansfield University. We were visiting one of my roommate's sister, who is a music major at the school. She told us that it would be a fun night. When we arrived, we were very eager to begin drinking and hurried our way into the freshman dorms with a bag full of Keystone Ices and a bottle of Evan Williams. I hadn't drank in a dorm in over a year, so it was a nice bit of nostalgia at first. The girls that were our hosts were a bit awkward at first, so we started out with a game of "Up Chicken Down Chicken" to break the ice (this is one of the best drinking games ever and I recommend all play it at some point). We were having a great time, but I had forgotten the negative aspects of living in a dorm.

There was a loud knock on the door, and the girls immediately became silent. Us being idiots, didn't even realize what was going on, so we continued to drink and asked out loud who it was. The individual behind the door said his name was Scott, and one of the girls said this was okay. Apparently he was the coolest R.A. in the building. Well the "coolest" R.A. in the building walked into the room and proceeded to write down all of our info, write up all the girls that lived there, and had us pour out ALL of our booze...I then wondered how the worst R.A. in the dorm would handle this situation. I imagined a person shooting me in the kneecap and pouring my confiscated beer into my open wound. When all the reprimanding was finished, cool guy Scott quietly thanked us for cooperating with him and said it was very nice meeting all of us. My friends and I were not happy, and soon found out that Mansfield University was a completely dry campus.

Some of the girls were kind of upset (they were crying). They had gotten written up, so we left some of them and headed into town. We went to a place called the Hungry Monkey and ate some greasy food while drinking 40s. I really enjoyed this spot. I began to notice that for a Friday night it didn't seem like there were any students out on the town. We inquired about the lack of fun people, especially the female ones. Well it turns out there was a relay for life event going on that night and the whole school basically attends this from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m.. Why we weren't informed that this was going to be the lamest Friday night of the year before we traveled there, I do no know. We decided that we needed to get shit housed at a bar as soon as possible. Well guess what. There is basically only one bar at Mansfield and they were closing early that night. So we ordered what we could before last call, and one of our friends stormed off into the evening alone. He would later wake up and find himself inside of a storage closet, inside a building he did not remember entering.

The rest of us wandered sad and drunk back to the sober dorms. We came across a church and for some reason ,that I still not understand, we started praying in front of this church. I stood at the top of the stairs and began reciting the Latin "Our Father" to my small congregation. A cop car drives passed us. This car whips around and the officer immediately gets out and tells us to freeze. We all stood there very dumbfounded by what was going on. Our hands were in the air and his flashlight was in our faces. This is the basic dialogue:

Cop: Get over here! I want two of you facing me and the other two facing the other way!
(We all turn around and face the other way)
Cop: I said I want two of you facing me!
(We all turn around and face him)
Cop: Do it right!
(At this point we are all freaked out and didn't know what to do, so we all started spinning in circles. I imagine this would have been really funny to watch)
Cop: Hold still! What are you boys doing over here.
Mike: Would you believe us If I told you we go to a Catholic school and that for some reason we thought it was a good time to pray. I can't tell you why we were praying, I just know that we were actually not doing anything wrong.
(The cop goes from being the meanest guy in the world to our new best friend)

We told him what school we went to, and he informed us that he loved our basketball team. He let us go. We stumbled back to the dorms and drank the rest of what we saved before passing out in a small room filled with mattresses. I woke up the following morning with your typical post-night of boozing dehydration feeling. I tried to find a water fountain, but none of them were working. Then I realized the sinks and showers were also not working. I find out that Mansfield turns off their fucking water at some points during the day! After all of this, my we had enough and got in the car and left.

Some advice. Properly research a place before you travel a large distance to get to the location. Make sure they allow booze, have parties, have bars, know the meaning of the word "cool", don't have an all-night relay for life event on a Friday, and have running water.