Sunday, August 24, 2008

RA Life-Episode One

It's the first night with residents and I am, once again, responding to a resident who's JAC card is not letting them into their dorm. This time however, three of my fellow RA's join me in this latest quest. I, as usual, am in the back of the pack when the three in front of me suddenly stop. At first I'm confused. The girl that was locked-out was through the next door, not in the hallway that we had all just frozen in. Then it hit me. It was this kind of sweet grassy smell. I closed my eyes and took it in. It had been so long since I had smelled anything like this. All at once the reality of the situation became clear to me, and I was instantly forced back into reality. Someone was smoking weed, however this time it was different. Instead of trying to find out who it was, so maybe I could get a free hit, and enjoy the feeling often described as "mellow", I was on the other side of the situation. I was the enforcer, the cop, the kill joy, THE MAN. I couldn't move. I backed away slightly. I watched as my coworkers sniffed the doors in the area. I continued to back away, slowly moving myself around the corner. There I laid my head against the wall. "I don't want to deal with this," I thought.
Finally I worked up enough courage to move myself from around the corner. The other RA's were discussing what to do. One of them gave me a strange look. He probably thought I had almost ran away from the situation. He would have been right. The decided to split into two groups. One was to go and finish our original mission (The locked out girl), the other was to call the cops. I was apart of the latter. My partner in uncrime was Justin. He looked at me and said, "Matt you call the cops and I'll call Leigh."
I replied, "NO! You call the cops. I'll call Leigh." He did both. My job became to wait by the phone in case the cops called back. Of course, I've always been the type of person who wants to be where the action is, so I called the another RA and had them sit by the phone waiting for the cops to call. When I had made it back to the situation, the cops had just arrived and they were roughing the kids up.
"You boys been smoking pot!" they asked?
"No Sir," one of the residents replied softly.
Then the two cops went into the room and closed the door. When the emerged form the scene of the crime, they had evidence and two confessions. I new I had a lot to learn before I was a true enforcer of the law. I couldn't believe that I had choked in my moment to shine. The only excuse i could find, was that I wasn't ready, I just wasn't ready.

1 comment:

Ember said...

so are you going through DTs yet from not inhalin the magic herb??

kidddingggg!

i.love.the.way.you.write.