Chapter 2: The Wash U Guy Strikes Back
Chapter 2
Two months after my initial encounter with Wash U guy I had finished the major project in one of my classes and was looking for a way to celebrate. A friend had a bunch of psychedelic mushrooms and offered to share. I had lived a relatively monastic life since the debauchery that was Dillo Day, so I agreed. The set-up was similar to Dillo Day. This time there were about 6 of us (with 3 overlapping members from DD) and we decided to confine our wanderings to the house. After a few hours everyone was well on their way to oblivion, and we heard a knock at the door. When we opened it we saw Wash U guy. I immediately thought I was having some sort of bad trip. It was simply impossible for Wash U guy to be there again while I was tripping. We had not seen him since Dillo Day and it was too big of a coincidence for him to again arrive under the EXACT SAME SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES.
He walked in and asked, “Hey guys. What are you up to? Listening to some music?”
As I sit here a few years later and ston- cold sober I still don’t exactly know how to answer that question. There was music playing so it was obvious that we were listening to music. Was he looking for a yes? For more information? Lest you have any doubts, this was an actual question. It was not some sort of idiosyncratic greeting that did not demand a response. Both the inflection used and the long pause at the end indicated that this was a genuine inquiry regarding what appeared to be an obvious state of affairs.
We all looked at one another trying to figure out who was coherent enough to understand/respond to this request. The answer, frankly, was no one. I think Wash U guy gave up on an answer after awhile and sat down.
I was in no mood to pretend to be normal again and was about to let Wash U guy know about the mushrooms when another guy walked in. A freshman had come over from one of the dorms to see what was going on at the house. The freshman was a little excitable when it came to things that were illegal and I knew that now, for better or worse, I was stuck trying to behave as if I had not just sucked down a sizable quantity of neurotoxic mushrooms. The situation deteriorated rapidly.
Another person in the room somehow started to believe that the freshman was sent by “the authorities” as some sort of spy. Spy for whom or what purpose we were never able to ascertain. All we could really get out the paranoid mushroom eater was that he was certain there was a turncoat in our midst and the infiltrator had to be dealt with immediately. After several minutes of intense whispering in which we tried to convince our now delusional friend that no “authorities” had any interest in us, he decided to make his accusations public. He violently rose to his full height, pointed his finger at the freshman, and bellowed in his loudest theater-major voice, “J‘ ACCUSE!”
The freshman had no response for this because 1) he didn’t speak French and was not familiar with Les Misarable or 2) it was insane. All in all, I thought the freshman handled himself very well. It is not easy to know how to respond to a de-contextualized accusation made in a foreign language. Given no further information, he decided to laugh politely in the hope that something less awkward would follow. Sadly, this was not the case.
“Should you be writing this down for your report?” the asked the paranoid theater major menacingly.
Again denied sufficient information to base a reasonable response, the freshman joked, “yeah, I am helping President B---- put you guys on double secret probation.”
Sarcasm was unfortunately beyond the paranoid theater major’s capacities at this point. He took this as confirmation of his worst fears and ran out of the room. Now often when one says that someone has run out of a room, they mean that the person left the room quickly. Not in this instance. When I say the paranoid theater major ran out of the room, I mean he tried to sprint through the coffee table, fell, picked himself up, and then sprinted out of the house running into several walls along the way. Furthermore, I am not really sure why he ran. Perhaps he thought the freshman had been granted police powers and was about to make an arrest.
The freshman was understandably confused, but seemed to let the issue go when another couple of people came into the room to ask if he wanted to join them at the campus bar. I later found out that one of my friends who was also in the room anticipated that no good could come out of this collection of people at this exact time, and dispatched the other people with the bar invitation in an attempt to avoid any unpleasantness. He failed.
Throughout all of this Wash U guy remained silent. Once the freshman left he said, “Sorry I missed your party last time. My friends were pretty tired.” No mention was made of the previous 20 minutes of insanity. It was like he hadn’t noticed. He then stayed in the room with the five remaining mushroom-intoxicated individuals for another hour. I don’t know exactly what he did the entire time because eventually I decided to ignore him. After an hour we decided to walk around campus, and Wash U guy said that he was going to head back to his friends. He said that he’d stop by again, but we were sure he was lying. A reasonable person would have concluded that our house was inhabited by a collegiate version of the Manson family, and it was only a matter of time before we lost our tenuous contact with reality for good. We assumed the only reason he didn’t run out of our house earlier was fear that he might be attacked by the stark-raving mad, musical theater fan he knew was prowling about. As you might imagine, we were wrong again. Wash U guy was not a reasonable person.
Stay tuned for Chapter 3: the return of Wash U guy. Of if you hate this series, don’t worry; there is only one more left.
Two months after my initial encounter with Wash U guy I had finished the major project in one of my classes and was looking for a way to celebrate. A friend had a bunch of psychedelic mushrooms and offered to share. I had lived a relatively monastic life since the debauchery that was Dillo Day, so I agreed. The set-up was similar to Dillo Day. This time there were about 6 of us (with 3 overlapping members from DD) and we decided to confine our wanderings to the house. After a few hours everyone was well on their way to oblivion, and we heard a knock at the door. When we opened it we saw Wash U guy. I immediately thought I was having some sort of bad trip. It was simply impossible for Wash U guy to be there again while I was tripping. We had not seen him since Dillo Day and it was too big of a coincidence for him to again arrive under the EXACT SAME SET OF CIRCUMSTANCES.
He walked in and asked, “Hey guys. What are you up to? Listening to some music?”
As I sit here a few years later and ston- cold sober I still don’t exactly know how to answer that question. There was music playing so it was obvious that we were listening to music. Was he looking for a yes? For more information? Lest you have any doubts, this was an actual question. It was not some sort of idiosyncratic greeting that did not demand a response. Both the inflection used and the long pause at the end indicated that this was a genuine inquiry regarding what appeared to be an obvious state of affairs.
We all looked at one another trying to figure out who was coherent enough to understand/respond to this request. The answer, frankly, was no one. I think Wash U guy gave up on an answer after awhile and sat down.
I was in no mood to pretend to be normal again and was about to let Wash U guy know about the mushrooms when another guy walked in. A freshman had come over from one of the dorms to see what was going on at the house. The freshman was a little excitable when it came to things that were illegal and I knew that now, for better or worse, I was stuck trying to behave as if I had not just sucked down a sizable quantity of neurotoxic mushrooms. The situation deteriorated rapidly.
Another person in the room somehow started to believe that the freshman was sent by “the authorities” as some sort of spy. Spy for whom or what purpose we were never able to ascertain. All we could really get out the paranoid mushroom eater was that he was certain there was a turncoat in our midst and the infiltrator had to be dealt with immediately. After several minutes of intense whispering in which we tried to convince our now delusional friend that no “authorities” had any interest in us, he decided to make his accusations public. He violently rose to his full height, pointed his finger at the freshman, and bellowed in his loudest theater-major voice, “J‘ ACCUSE!”
The freshman had no response for this because 1) he didn’t speak French and was not familiar with Les Misarable or 2) it was insane. All in all, I thought the freshman handled himself very well. It is not easy to know how to respond to a de-contextualized accusation made in a foreign language. Given no further information, he decided to laugh politely in the hope that something less awkward would follow. Sadly, this was not the case.
“Should you be writing this down for your report?” the asked the paranoid theater major menacingly.
Again denied sufficient information to base a reasonable response, the freshman joked, “yeah, I am helping President B---- put you guys on double secret probation.”
Sarcasm was unfortunately beyond the paranoid theater major’s capacities at this point. He took this as confirmation of his worst fears and ran out of the room. Now often when one says that someone has run out of a room, they mean that the person left the room quickly. Not in this instance. When I say the paranoid theater major ran out of the room, I mean he tried to sprint through the coffee table, fell, picked himself up, and then sprinted out of the house running into several walls along the way. Furthermore, I am not really sure why he ran. Perhaps he thought the freshman had been granted police powers and was about to make an arrest.
The freshman was understandably confused, but seemed to let the issue go when another couple of people came into the room to ask if he wanted to join them at the campus bar. I later found out that one of my friends who was also in the room anticipated that no good could come out of this collection of people at this exact time, and dispatched the other people with the bar invitation in an attempt to avoid any unpleasantness. He failed.
Throughout all of this Wash U guy remained silent. Once the freshman left he said, “Sorry I missed your party last time. My friends were pretty tired.” No mention was made of the previous 20 minutes of insanity. It was like he hadn’t noticed. He then stayed in the room with the five remaining mushroom-intoxicated individuals for another hour. I don’t know exactly what he did the entire time because eventually I decided to ignore him. After an hour we decided to walk around campus, and Wash U guy said that he was going to head back to his friends. He said that he’d stop by again, but we were sure he was lying. A reasonable person would have concluded that our house was inhabited by a collegiate version of the Manson family, and it was only a matter of time before we lost our tenuous contact with reality for good. We assumed the only reason he didn’t run out of our house earlier was fear that he might be attacked by the stark-raving mad, musical theater fan he knew was prowling about. As you might imagine, we were wrong again. Wash U guy was not a reasonable person.
Stay tuned for Chapter 3: the return of Wash U guy. Of if you hate this series, don’t worry; there is only one more left.
posted by Bartleby the Student at 4:08 PM
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