We Were That Table

Part of my summer job entails living in a college dormitory. As you may or may not know, colleges often host conferences of various kinds in the summer - great publicity, better revenue. The conferences can be athletic, scholastic, or just common-interest in nature, but they're almost always comprised of high school kids.

Yesterday over 1,000 high school and junior high girls checked into our halls for a basketball camp, and my wing (which I usually have to myself) was overrun with squealing terrors. Now, having them on my wing isn't a huge problem since I have my own bathroom, but the squealing?

Kathryn and I were chatting last night and for over an hour I heard nothing but slamming doors, herds of teenagers charging down the halls, and squealing. Loud squealing. Squealing so loud I had to leave my room and go somewhere else.

Now, I left my phone charger in Denver on the last trip and Kathryn very kindly dropped it in the mail - but in the meantime I have no phone. So last night I headed over to the bar without calling anyone; just got the hell out of my room and walked to the neighborhood watering hole.

Lo and behold, four of my best friends and coworkers were already there, two pitchers deep and still going strong. They'd tried to call but my phone, being out of juice and turned off, went straight to voicemail.

Long story short, the five of us spent an hour drinking tasty microbeer, telling horror stories about conferences, and generally blowing off steam. By the end of it we were being truly obnoxious to each other and getting annoyed looks from other patrons. Good times, and I was feeling great by the time I returned to my room at 10 or so.

Then I was kept up until 12:30 by squealing.