No sweet talking out of this one

Thump thump thump thump.

“R.A., open up!”

Everyone froze.

I looked at the door in terror, then back at my roommate and friends.

We were sitting at a folding card table.

Cards, coins, and bottles of beer littered the surface.

Thump thump thump thump thump.

“R.A., you need to open this door!”

I stood up slowly.

I rubbed my temples with my index and middle fingers as I walked towards the door.

Around me, the others in the room scrambled to quickly, quietly, hide all traces of the alcohol.

There was nothing to be done about the closet.

The closet.

Armageddon.

I pushed this thought aside, trying to clear my head.

My fingers closed around the knob and I turned it, slowly.

Pulled the door open 2 inches.

My eye met the eye of a girl several years older.

Clipboard in hand, a stern scowl on her face.

“Hi is there a problem?” I asked innocently.

“There was a noise complaint about this room, and we could hear you as soon as we got off the elevator. Mind if we come in?”

“We were just playing poker,” I explained, “we’ll quiet down, sorry about that.”

“You need to let us in the room.” The girl spoke in a cold, matter-of-fact tone.

I paused.

“I don’t really want to. What you do if I just close this door and lock it?”

“I’ll call the cops, and they will come down here and ask you to open it. If you don’t, then the cops will wake up the hall director and he will have to walk over here in his pajamas with the master key, and then he’ll open the door. And none of them will be very happy. I strongly recommend you just let me in to take a look around.”

My heart sank. Looks like there was no sweet talking out of this one.

I glanced behind me, and noticed that all of the glasses and beer bottles were gone. My friends sat around the table, quietly pretending to play cards, all staring at me and the door.

“Fine, I’ll let you come in,” I said as I swung the door open, “But if you want to play it’s a $20 buy in.” I immediately cringed, knowing this was not the time for jokes.

The girl, a “Resident Advisor” in the dorm hall we lived in, strode into the room. A younger man followed her, clearly a NARC-in-training.

She began to study the inside of our room as she slowly paced.

“Is that supposed to be a bar?” she gestured towards the corner.

There, two desks were perched on top of cinder blocks, with particle-board wood paneling stapled across the front. Christmas lights were strung (stapled) onto the wood paneling and more lights hung behind the bar.

It really did look like a bar, which was the point.

Without waiting for an answer, the girl walked over to the bar and picked up an empty glass that was sitting on the end.

She brought it up to her nose and sniffed.

A look of smug satisfaction settled on her face.

“Fuzzy navel,” she said knowingly, “Where’s the peach schnapps?”

“All gone,” my roommate interjected. “That was the last of it. From one of those tiny little ‘shooter’ bottles.”

Her eyebrow raised.

I made an immediate strategic decision. We needed them out of here ASAP. She must NOT go into the closet. We had to divert her at any cost. A slap on the wrist it was.

“We’re so sorry,” I said. “We were playing poker and had some drinks. There was a fuzzy navel and you’ll find some empty beer bottles under the bed. We weren’t trying to cause a problem, sorry we got too loud.”

As I spoke, I crouched on the floor and reached under the bed, groping for the beer bottles that must have been stashed there.

I found one and pulled it out.

“Do we get tickets or something?” I handed the empty beer bottle to the girl.

The smug grin had become a smile.

“I’ll need all of your names and your room numbers. You’ll all be reported to the hall director for possession of alcohol in the dorms. He’ll determine the punishment, but you can get an idea by looking on page 43 of your student handbook…”

She tried to hide her glee as she began collecting names and room numbers from the others in the room.

Some of my invited guests looked at me with daggers.

They didn’t realize why I had turned over the beer bottles, the disaster I had averted…

Suddenly, my roommate vomited a stream of words that had the power to ruin lives.

“Hey, where’s Jon?”

I looked around the room.

Jon was missing.

Where the heck did he go? Did he somehow sneak out?

Was he hiding?

The girl was also looking around the room again…

Oh Lord no.

She looked.

And finally noticed.

The closet door.

“Um, can I look inside your closet?”

Don’t tell my mom, but I started my first real business Freshman year of college.

A dorm room speakeasy.

It’s quite a story, but it’ll take me a few days to unroll.

Tomorrow, I’ll tell you more.

Greg