09-29-2009, 11:42 AM
I've tried calling in to tell this story twice. On Monday I was on hold during the segment, but got in line too late, and they went to WHWT before I could share. This morning I was on hold during CWTTA, and they went to break before getting to me. So, looks like I'll just share my story here...
During my second year of college my roomate and I decided to decorate our dorm room with all sorts of crazy crap. One day one of us would show up with a really ugly lamp from Goodwill, a few days later we'd find a poster of Johnny Cash flipping the bird, etc. When the school year started, I had noticed a big orange road construction sign lying in a ditch alongside a rarely used backroad not too far from campus. After seeing it there, unmoved, for a month, I decided it was time to add it to our room.
Late one night we got two of our friends to help us out, we got in my car, and drove to the sign. I pulled off to the side of the road, two guys went down for the sign, the other guy and I went to work on my car-- opening the hatchback, putting down the back seat for additional space. After a minute or two the guys arrived with the sign. This is when everything started to turn into a comedy of errors.
Immediately I realized the sign was much bigger than I thought. Down there in the ditch, partially covered by weeds, it looked like it was about the size of a stopsign. Rather, it was almost a four foot by four foot square... and that wasn't including the wooden legs that were attached to the back of it. After a moment of panic, I told the guys to jump in the back, hang on to the sign, and I'd just drive back to campus with the hatch wide open.
We did this, and arrived in the dorm parking lot a few minutes later. Now we realized our next problem-- getting the sign in. We decided we'd have one guy go inside and go to a lounge we had on the first floor of the dorm. It was usually empty and had big windows. While we sent one of the guys in, the rest of us quietly carried the sign up near the building, hiding in the shadows while we waited for the all clear to pass it through the window.
After a few moments of waiting we heard our friend from inside. He couldn't remove the screen from the window. Crap. At this point most people would probably just give up, and throw the stupid thing into the trash dumpster that was a couple yards away, but not us. We decided we'd just take the thing in through the only doorway into the building, and quickly head straight to the back stairwell that wasn't usually used. We figured if we moved quickly and quietly, we might be able to get through without drawing too much attention to ourselves.
Away we went, we got through the building, up the stairs, and into our room without being stopped. We stood the sign up in the middle of my room and took a moment to appreciate the fruits of our labor. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Immediately we picked the sign up and moved it into the bathroom, slamming the door behind us. We answered the knock at the door, and there was our RA, asking us if we had a road sign in the room. We all swore we had no idea what he was talking about, and opened the door to let him look into the room himself. I'm sure he knew we were lying, but decided that 'out of sight out of mind' was just the best action to take. We wound up keeping that damn sign in the bathroom all year long, to avoid having to explain to the RA that we lied when he first came to ask about a sign.
At the end of the school year we decided it wasn't worth it to try to take the sign home, so we had one last moment of fun with it-- we took it over to the other side of campus and blocked off a campus street with it.
During my second year of college my roomate and I decided to decorate our dorm room with all sorts of crazy crap. One day one of us would show up with a really ugly lamp from Goodwill, a few days later we'd find a poster of Johnny Cash flipping the bird, etc. When the school year started, I had noticed a big orange road construction sign lying in a ditch alongside a rarely used backroad not too far from campus. After seeing it there, unmoved, for a month, I decided it was time to add it to our room.
Late one night we got two of our friends to help us out, we got in my car, and drove to the sign. I pulled off to the side of the road, two guys went down for the sign, the other guy and I went to work on my car-- opening the hatchback, putting down the back seat for additional space. After a minute or two the guys arrived with the sign. This is when everything started to turn into a comedy of errors.
Immediately I realized the sign was much bigger than I thought. Down there in the ditch, partially covered by weeds, it looked like it was about the size of a stopsign. Rather, it was almost a four foot by four foot square... and that wasn't including the wooden legs that were attached to the back of it. After a moment of panic, I told the guys to jump in the back, hang on to the sign, and I'd just drive back to campus with the hatch wide open.
We did this, and arrived in the dorm parking lot a few minutes later. Now we realized our next problem-- getting the sign in. We decided we'd have one guy go inside and go to a lounge we had on the first floor of the dorm. It was usually empty and had big windows. While we sent one of the guys in, the rest of us quietly carried the sign up near the building, hiding in the shadows while we waited for the all clear to pass it through the window.
After a few moments of waiting we heard our friend from inside. He couldn't remove the screen from the window. Crap. At this point most people would probably just give up, and throw the stupid thing into the trash dumpster that was a couple yards away, but not us. We decided we'd just take the thing in through the only doorway into the building, and quickly head straight to the back stairwell that wasn't usually used. We figured if we moved quickly and quietly, we might be able to get through without drawing too much attention to ourselves.
Away we went, we got through the building, up the stairs, and into our room without being stopped. We stood the sign up in the middle of my room and took a moment to appreciate the fruits of our labor. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. Immediately we picked the sign up and moved it into the bathroom, slamming the door behind us. We answered the knock at the door, and there was our RA, asking us if we had a road sign in the room. We all swore we had no idea what he was talking about, and opened the door to let him look into the room himself. I'm sure he knew we were lying, but decided that 'out of sight out of mind' was just the best action to take. We wound up keeping that damn sign in the bathroom all year long, to avoid having to explain to the RA that we lied when he first came to ask about a sign.
At the end of the school year we decided it wasn't worth it to try to take the sign home, so we had one last moment of fun with it-- we took it over to the other side of campus and blocked off a campus street with it.