The Morning After: Breaking Out

By Anonymous

I wish I could say we were drunk. Not because I think you need to be two sheets to the wind to have fun in college, but because there should be some excuse for the stupidity that was exhibited that night.

It was finals week and besides a few short trips outside to grab some food or hit up a review session, my hallmates and I hadn’t gotten out of the dorm much. After a long week of frigid temperatures paired with long nights in the study lounge, we had cabin fever. It was a Saturday night and we were sick of the textbooks, the note cards, the highlighters. None of us wanted to go out – we had to be up and fully functional in the morning for our last day of studying before the big week – but none of us wanted to study, so we gathered in my friend’s room. We busted out a bag of Tostitos and some cheese dip and sat in a circle eating and talking.

We were bored. We were overtired. We were getting a little bit crazy. Somehow, this conversation happened.

Friend 1: I feel like we’re in jail.

Friend 2: I know – I just want to break out.

Friend 1: Yeah, like in those movies when they tie the sheets together and climb out the window.

Friend 3: OMG. That would be so awesome. I wonder if that ever really works.

Friend 2: Yeah, it always looks so easy. I bet it would totally work.

Friend 3: We should totally try it.

And we did. Each of us went back to our rooms, grabbed the one set of sheets we had that weren’t made of t-shirt material (Friend 2: “Those will stretch too much; we need something sturdy.”) and reconvened.

We tied our pink and purple sheets together into 2 long chains. We tied the end of the chains to the foot of my friend’s bunkbed. We hung the chains out of the 4^th floor window. (Note: there was a large overhang above the 2^nd floor, so it was really only a 2 floor drop. This made the entire situation more feasible in our minds.)

Never once did we stop to question what we were doing. The thought that this was a terrible idea never crossed any of our minds. In fact, as this entire process went down, the idea seemed better and better. We couldn’t stop laughing, excited to share the story with anyone and everyone we knew.

With my intense fear of heights, I decided not to try the climb. Instead, I sat on the bed making sure there was enough weight to keep the chains in place. My two friends Amy and Melanie changed into all-black ensembles – ski cap and all – and prepared to take the plunge.

They climbed out of the window, got a firm grasp on the sheets and started to climb down. We all watched and laughed. All was going well until Amy slipped, smashing her hand into the brick wall. She was bleeding, but quickly made her way down to the ground. We cheered.

Melanie made it about halfway down before she decided she was over the climb and jumped off. She hit the ground. We cheered. The girls walked along the overhang peering in people’s windows until they found someone home, knocked on the window, climbed in (explaining what they just did and receiving a hearty “that’s so awesome”) and returned to us. Amy’s hand was bloody. Mel was limping. We all laughed and celebrated and rehashed for the rest of the night. Whenever someone came back to the dorm, we stopped them and told them the story. Everyone laughed.

A week later, after limping to and from her finals and flying back home to New York, Melanie finally went to the doctor and found out she had actually fractured a bone in her ankle. She spent the first 4 weeks of the semester on crutches. It was only then that any of us started to wonder if the dorm rappelling was really a good idea.