Thoughtful

This time I just want to tell you the story of the night the man came in our dorm.

First of all, our dorms were strictly separated.  There were three dorms for the girls and three dorms for the guys.  The only times we were allowed in each others' dorms were at the twice a year open houses or during move in or move out times.

On top of that, we had curfew every night.  On Monday through Wednesday, curfew was at 11:00.  Thursdays, curfew was at 10:00.  Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, curfew was at 1:00 a.m.  The doors were locked, and no one was permitted in or out until morning, except for special circumstances.

But policies don't work one hundred percent of the time.

The following comes from what I wrote a few days after the event, while the memories and emotions were still fresh.

About four o'clock on a Sunday morning, one of the girls on my floor, "S," woke up because her overhead light was on.  There was a man in her room!  In her sleepy state, she thought that she had slept through church and there was a maintenance man in her room.  In reality, that was highly unlikely since it was a Sunday, and none of the maintenance guys would come in a room without the permission the girl(s) in the room.  But you don't always think straight when you're mostly asleep. She rolled over toward the wall to go back to sleep, figuring that since she missed church, she might as well go back to sleep.

The man saw that she was awake and walked over toward the door, toward her bed, and shut out the light.  She said that she thought he mumbled "sorry" or something similar as he did.  Then he reached down and touched her right shoulder.  She spun around, putting her back against the wall and shouted, "What are you doing?" 

He responded, "What?" 

She shouted again, "What are you doing?" 

He said, "Nothin'." 

She shouted at him, "Well, then, get out!"   

He asked her name, but of course she ignored the question and she yelled at him again to get out.  He opened the door and left her room, stepping out into the hallway. 

Her roommate, "J" was actually awake most of this time, laying in her bed, facing the wall.  At first she thought the girl was talking in her sleep until she heard the man's voice.  Then she was too scared to turn around.  As soon as the man left the room, the two girls looked at each other, amazed at what just happened.  They rushed to lock the door, then they called our dorm parents to let them know what happened.   

Mom answered the phone and spoke very calmly to the girls, and so Dad didn't realize that there was something seriously wrong.  So he was surprised when Mom disconnected with the girls then looked at him for a moment before screaming, "There is a man in the dorm!"

While Mom and Dad were taking action, S and J were also.  They started calling other girls on the floor.  When they called our room, I answered the phone.  It took me a moment to wake enough to understand what she was saying.  When I did figure it out, I rushed to lock our door, dropping the phone in the process.  Nicole was awake by then, so I began to explain to her what was going on.  Then I realized that S was still on the phone, so I picked it up, letting her know that we were safe.

We hung up and I tried to call the security guard.  I was angry that he didn't answer, but I learned later that he had already been called and was heading our direction. 

After a few minutes of sitting in our room feeling like we were playing the worst game of hide and seek ever, Nicole and I heard voices out in the hall.  We peeked out our door and saw Mom and Dad and the two girls were down the hall, so we figured it was safe to come out.  They were walking down the hallway checking doorknobs. 

 I thought they were checking to make sure all of the doors were locked, but they were looking for the man.  We had no idea where he was.  Mom had her key and was opening each door to check on the girls inside.  When she opened the next door, the man was right there pushing against it trying to keep her out.  That's when Mama Bear came out.   

We knew that "C" had gone home for the night, so "K" was in there by herself.
Mom was screaming and calling out the girl's name and still pushing against that door.

We didn't know that the girl had decided to sleep a few rooms down with another girl.  She woke up when she heard the noise, and she stuck her head out the door and said, "I'm down here; is something wrong?" 

Dad said, "Yes, get back in there and close the door."  She went back in her room, and the girl she was staying over with, "L", was awake.  She thought she was in trouble for not being in her own room. Before long, though, she found out that it was good she had stayed in another room. 

Once they knew that the man was presumably in there alone, Mom and Dad stopped trying to force their way in, figuring that containment was now a good thing.  The security guard showed up just then, and he, Mom, and Dad decided to leave him there until the police arrived. 

When the police arrived and went into the room, he was sitting at one of the girl's computers, playing a game.  He was arrested and we found out later that they had him on burglary charges somewhere else as well. 

After he was gone, K went into her room and saw that he had been looking through her things when he was there.  Also he had left things in there, including a belt [what?!?] and a cigarette butt. 

By this time, most of the girls on the floor were awake, so we went into the lobby to talk and sort out our experiences.  The security guard came back by and spoke with us about the situation as well. 

Later that week, a martial arts instructor came to the dorm lobby and taught self defense to those who were interested. 

We found out later "the rest of the story."  Sometime that early morning, there were two (!) men in a car driving on campus.  And let me tell you, OCC is not like some college campuses where the neighborhood around it blends into the campus.  It is very obvious that you're on a college campus, and there is nothing but a wooded area on the other side of campus, so they weren't just passing through..  So we're not sure what they thought they were doing, but I have a hard time believing it was completely accidental. 

 For some reason, (drunkenness and fog was part of it I'm sure) they went off the road and got their car stuck on a slope.  So the two men split up.   

One went one direction, and one went the other.  One ended up getting inside one of the boys' dorms.  The boys who found him took him out of the dorm and called a taxi for him.  End of story.  And we girls probably wouldn't have known anything about it if it weren't for the other one finding his way into the girls' dorm.

That was probably the scariest thing that happened to me in college.  What was one of the scariest things that happened to you in college?