Knowingly In The Presence

I’m not sure if an R.A. will tell you this story, and if they inform you at all it’s going to be in a concise way that won’t tell you the real story. Below is the real story. The facts have not been changed to convey more guild or innocence then actually exists. Some of the dialogue has been altered because it was either unnecessary or I just don’t remember exactly what was said.

Shortly before midnight, Saturday December 10^th. In my world Fatio and Lebniz are arguing over whether a hypothetical object can have perspective, if having perspective will give it a soul, and the greater implications of that. In the world around me Conrad and roughly seven of his friends are celebrating / partying. Whatever they call it when they hang around in our room drinking listening to music and conversing. The music is of mediocre quality, and I have my privacy screen up so it doesn’t bug me. The person it does bug is the R.A. It’s finals week so we’re on a 24 hour quiet hour. Normally one can be as loud as one damn well pleases until 2 a.m. on a weekend. Today is not part of normally. Conrad has forgotten this. There’s a knock on the door which nobody hears, including me. I know it happened because the R.A. told us when she first knocked.

Her name is Sarah and she’s a nice person overall, but in this story she’s a scary Authority Figure, so we’ll continue to refer to her as “The R.A.”

There’s a second knock on the door, this one I do hear.
“Conrad! door. Or one of Conrad’s friends, Door!”
I’m lying down and reading, they’re already standing so my laziness disguises itself as logic and I don’t go to open it. Neither do Conrad’s friends. Remember this was triggered by a noise ordinance.
Max: “CONRAD! Door Damn it!”
Conrad: “Who is it?”
Conrad’s Friend #1 “It’s the R.A.” She says it in the dread voice that people use to say things like “The Tumor is malignant” or “he didn’t make it.” Once this registers through Conrad’s hazed mind there’s a lot of profanity and rushing around, the end product is that a bunch of people are standing suspiciously close together and blocking the view of our back shelf / windowsill thing. When you have three people living in a 15’ by 10’ (tops) space you have to learn that everything is a shelf. Especially the floor. Anyway, 5 minutes after the first knock one of Conrad’s friends opens the door. I’ve since gone back to reading.

R.A.: “Ok you guys step aside. All the way aside. Yeah that’s what I thought. Bring me all the alcohol in the room.” You can probably fill in what happened during that speech on your own.
R.A.: “I need you guy’s I.D.s”
Conrad’s Friend #4: “What if we don’t go here?”
R.A.: “State identification.” Conrad’s friends get out the relevant cards. Only some of them go to UW so in addition a few Washington state drivers licenses are passed forward. At this point I lean forward sleepily out of my screened in area. If I haven’t mentioned it yet I was half-asleep when this whole fiasco began. In retrospect I could probably have avoided detection entirely if I had simply feigned sleep and not come out from behind the curtain, but that’s retrospect and a lot of good it does me now.
Max: “I’m here too.” I offer forth my UW card and my Texas state driver’s license. “Sorry for the delay I’m tired and as you can see there’s a bit of a human wall between me and you.”
Sarah (for that one instant she wasn’t as scary): “No problem.”
R.A.: “You know what tipped us off? There’s a weird smell coming from the room, your subwoofer is rattling things 2 rooms away, and it took you guys 5 minutes to open the door.”
Conrad: “Well couldn’t hear it at first…”
R.A.: “We say someone looking through the peephole and it was still 5 minutes before you opened it.”
Max: “If this is a liquor thing can I just take a breathalyzer test?”
Conrad: “Yeah, just test him he’s clean.”
R.A.: “No we won’t be testing. You all signed a dorm contract when you got here, it was on your bed when you first entered, that said that being knowingly in the presence of alcohol was a violation.”

Well, I can’t deny that I was knowingly in the presence. So I’m guilty on that count. What matters to me right then is that I’m the only one in the room that can truthfully say that I haven’t been drinking. In fact I can only recall 3 or 4 times I’ve drank something alcoholic recently, and those 4 times are all amazingly similar. In fact, I gave the same toast each time. Baruch ata Adoni, Eloheniu melch ha’olam, porey pari ha’gaffen. Amen. For those of you that don’t know that’s the Jewish sacrament over the wine as part of a Kiddush ceremony. All that aside though…

Conrad, speaking directly too me while the R.A. deals with his friends who are trying to protest. “I’ll just say you only got here two minutes ago.” It’s nice that he was trying to protect me, but fruitless.
Max: “Conrad they were here for fie minutes before you opened the door; they’ll know your lying.”
Conrad: “No man, I’ll just say you got here like two minutes before…”
Max: “Conrad, No lies. You’re not sober enough to be clever right now. I’ll take care of myself. The Truth shall set me free.”

We got our I.D. cards back and Conrad’s friends tried to argue some more, but they didn’t have a good case, and if they had a good case they wouldn’t have been sober enough to argue it well. The R.A. summed up our punishments a few times because of the previously mentioned lack of sobriety. I’ll get an e-mail from the R.D. eventually to arrange a time to meet with her. They won’t inform my parents, or so they say, but I think it’s a story you guys deserve to know so I’m posting this. I haven’t been kicked out of the dorm, and I don’t think any legal charges will be filed against me. The R.A. and Conrad went to the kitchenette and dumped out all of the liquor they confiscated. Once they got back and the R.A. had left the real act of stupidity occurred. Conrad pulled out of some hiding place or another the rest of his liquor, and his friends began rapidly consuming it all.

Max: “Damnit Conrad! What did I just tell you about lies? When the R.A. comes to your room and catches you in the act it’s over. Game Over, time to surrender. The consequences weren’t that bad this time but if they find out you we’re lying they won’t hold anything back.”
Conrad: “Don’t worry man we’re just gonna kill all of it now.”
Max, in the process of leaving the room: “Conrad that is Fucking Damn Retarded. If this happens again I’m selling you all up the river to protect myself.”
I went off to go read in the lounge until they had wandered off. Where they went I do not know.

The Full consequences of this little adventure are yet to be played out, but according to Sarah the meeting probably won’t take place until winter quarter.