RA Stories: My Weekend Duty from Hell

Out of sheer luck I scheduled myself for duty on a Friday and Saturday Night of the same weekend. Duty here consists of making 3 rounds a night. I live in the Upper Quads and there are 5 buildings that range in occupancy from 18 residents per floor to 50. As it turns out, Friday and Saturday will never be forgotten, ever! I went into that weekend with 2 write-ups for the year and it was already second semester, so I had a very small track record. I left that weekend with a new total of 8!

Friday night myself and the other RA on duty with me were walking through the ground floor of a freshmen hall. Five guys went tearing down the steps and out the door like they were being chased. We watched bewildered because their heads were shaved, but not completely. They deliberately missed patches of hair and some had even carved designs such as penises into their heads. We were worried because it could be potential underground fraternity hazing since rush and pledging didn’t start for several more weeks. We walk up the next floor and another male resident with his head bizarrely shaved was giving directions to a friend. He attempted to describe how to get to their destination, an on campus fraternity house. We stopped to eavesdrop because his friend did not understand the directions, which made the situation more humorous not to mention seeing the guys with such heinously ugly haircuts. We paged the CA on call to inform her about the situation, we were told just to write an incident report. That was report 1 for the weekend.

On the same round we were walking through the largest building in our area, which is heavily populated with freshmen. A male resident wearing only a towel stops us to inform us of a vandalized shower. We decided to tour the male bathroom. The first shower stall was normal. Someone was drinking beer in the shower and left 4 beer cans some still with beer in them. Who drinks in the shower?? The third stall had been vandalized. Someone had taken the liberty of yanking the valve out of the wall where you control the water and its temperature. The funny part was, it was taken as a souvenir because it was never found. Mind you when I broke my shower at home my father had to purchase a special tool—I don’t know how someone managed to do it with his or her bare hands. Needless to say, the RA that I was on duty with the following night talked to the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and told me that I had to write an incident report because it was “criminal mischief.”

Finally it was the last round of the night, about 1 am. Everyone was quiet except for the large hall, again. My co-RA stopped in the lounge to say hi to some of the residents. I continued to walk past an open door and a female resident was vomiting. I asked if everything was ok, her roommate replied no. I called my co-RA into the room with me. She had been drinking and obviously had way too much. I had never seen that much puke before in my life; it was everywhere!! She was barely coherent and couldn’t perform actions such as sitting up in bed or talking in a logical manner. My co-RA and I evaluated the situation and decided to call DPS. DPS showed up and decided that she had to go to the hospital. *Note, she received the proper care and is fine* This was our final write-up of Friday night.

Saturday night rolls around and I’m on duty with a different RA. I informed him of last night’s events and that I was looking forward to hopefully an easy night. He came over to watch Shrek and had his calls forwarded to my room so that if anyone needed him, he was just a phone call away. We finished watching the movie and at the end there is a little “Magic Mirror” part on the DVD, which is similar to a magic eight ball. We asked jokingly if tonight was going to be an easy and uneventful night of duty, the mirror laughed and told us “You’ve got to be kidding!” I’m not very superstitious so we just laughed and continued with our evening. The first round was boring and nothing happened. Our second round got very interesting quite fast.

Before we entered the next hall a female was leaning out of a window yelling to someone smoking to remember to “bring all the stuff”, obviously implying alcohol. When she noticed us she glared and said, “You know the perfume!”-what a cover up! We were strolling through a male floor in one of the smaller buildings. A male resident looked very chummy with a girl and was holding a bottle in his hand. I was quite sure, but I wanted to ask my co-RA if he saw it. We both turned around immediately and the couple just darted into a room that was loud and suspicious. We knocked on the door and it took them forever to open it. Finally, we inquired as to what they were doing and what they had been drinking out in the hallway and they didn’t have an answer. There were at least ten people in the room and we didn’t remember about double occupancy until after we left. Since we couldn’t see or smell anything we just told them to be good and we would be on another round.

There was a loud room in my building and my co-RA was checking it out while I went in the upperclassmen hall, which was usually deadly silent. I tossed him the keys in case I needed help. I was walking on the second floor behind two guys that seemed to think I didn’t exist. I was friendly and inquired about their evening. They were virtually unresponsive and said fine. They walked in the room, and as I passed I heard, “Dude that was the RA, she could have busted us!” I at this point knocked on the door and I heard, “Oh shit!” They opened the door less than 1 foot, I told them that I could hear everything they said because the walls are very thin. There was a pyramid of empty beer cans stacked on the desk and a row of bottles between the fridge and the other desk. I could hear more voices in the room, but they refused to open the door. So I said, “Fine, I will be back.” I went to the window in the lounge that faced the interior of the quad and called to my co-RA for back up. Seconds later, 4 people flee from the party, I recognized one of them and called to him as he ran down the stairs, “John Doe, I know where you live!” As they were leaving, they grabbed 4 more people that were about to join the party and went running across the quad. I am joined by my co-RA and we knocked on the door and the residents opened the door wide open. I asked what was the problem last time, they said we didn’t want the other people to get busted. I asked what would we be busting you for and they looked dumbfounded. They replied that only for what we saw. From my perspective, I couldn’t see anything, but my co-Ra noticed that beer was hidden under the coffee table at my feet. One resident grabbed a case of beer and the other grabbed a six-pack and attempted to leave the other in the room. They proceeded to argue and try to strike a deal for 10 minutes—it was hilarious. They finally emptied all the beer in the bathroom sink and told us that strangers brought the alcohol to their room. I told them that even though we go to school in a small town, it is still not safe to let strangers in, especially at this late hour. That was write-up for number 4 for the weekend.

We went back to our rooms and I told my duty partner I would call if I needed him. The other RA in my building had left me a voicemail telling me to check out the room next to her. I called the other RA on duty again and he walked out into the quad. I leaned out my window and he asked to be let in. We knocked on the door and alcohol was present. There was another disagreement about what would happen. We did our last round, which was thankfully quiet except for one room. Upon walking through the building where we issued a warning on the same floor as before. We heard clanking glasses and we remembered double occupancy that time. They explained that the glasses they were clanking held cranberry juice. We couldn’t see or smell any alcohol, so we explained that it is a fire hazard and a potential party hazard to have in the room more than twice the number of people that live in the room, especially with the door closed. However, my night was far from over.

It was 2 am and I hear blood-curdling screaming from the quad. I opened my window and stuck my head out and saw something I did not need to see. Ten naked guys running around my co-RA’s building and climbing into someone’s window! I couldn’t believe it. All I could think of was some poor girl waking up with 10 naked men in her room with an angry boyfriend nearby. I called DPS and told them, “Oh my god, there are ten bare-ass naked guys running through my quad, fix this!” I called the other RA on duty because it was his building and he went racing downstairs. He called me back to tell me that 4 DPS officers showed and the students were in big trouble. The room was loaded with unopened alcohol and the DPS officers said that they weren’t even drinking, nor was this related to hazing at all. They ran around outside in the freezing cold, completely naked for fun!

I finally got to bed at about 3 am and finished the reports in the morning with the RA on duty. I handed the Office of Residential Life a file folder on Monday morning. I was the talk of campus for over a week. The other RAs are still laughing about my quote to DPS. It was an unforgettable weekend that I hope I won’t top anytime soon.