Rule number one: (or really, this is the only rule that really matters) members of the opposite sex may only be on girl/boy floors during the weekday from 5pm to 10pm and 2pm to 11pm on weekends. When a member of the opposite sex is on the floor, doors must be open. You are to stay vertical at all times.


The girl who lived in the room right next to me was a sweet girl by the name of Dani. She was very pretty with dark curly brown hair, and was the kind of girl you love because she has a great personality but secretly envy for her beauty. The first couple of days I rarely saw her, but I often heard sounds of Mario Kart drifting in through our open windows and occasionally I heard talking or laughter. But this was all I knew of her for a while.

That was the case until after the incident. Dani probably didn’t know much about floor hours but this was a situation soon to be remedied. It started on a Saturday. Almost everyone in the dorm was gone except for Dani and me. There was a school wide movie premier of the Goonies on the lawn. Everyone was there. Everyone that is but Dani, me, and the person in her room. When I arrived at my dorm, I climbed the three (really four) flights of stairs to the third floor where my room was located. After surviving the hike, I then had to make my way down the hall to the second to last door.

Normally this task would be easy but not when you have a giant fan, three bags full of things your mother decided you needed on a much too early visit, and keys. I struggled to juggle everything in my arms while walking down the hall. As I passed Dani’s open door, I couldn’t help but glance in. The room was dark and on the left bed sat two people. On the TV in the center of the back wall a movie was playing. I didn’t notice what the movie was or who was on the bed. I was far too preoccupied with the items in my hands.

I made it to my door in time to drop everything as I struggled to put the key in the lock. As I made a huge crash and bang, I heard from the room next to me a faint hello. I said hello back and proceeded to shove everything into my room. It was dark and extremely warm. So I plugged in my fan, turned it up full blast and went about finding a place to put all of my new presents. Through my window I could hear the sound of Dani’s TV and music that sounded as if it could only be for a fight scene. (I was indeed correct).

An hour or so passed and when I looked at the clock it read 11:30. I was surprised because normally by now I would have heard someone coming down the hallway shouting “Floor hours!” But tonight there was nothing. The dorm was still empty as people were still out watching the movie.

I had been meaning to clean my fishbowl for several days and decided that since there was no one around, now would be as good a time as ever. I gathered the bowl in my hand and carried it and a cup out of my door. A male voice floated out into the hallway as I started walking down toward the bathroom. At first I thought it was the movie Dani was watching but then I noticed that the TV was no longer on. The room was still dark and there were still two people in the room. I didn’t think much of it and continued on my way.

When I had finished with my fishbowl cleaning, I started back for my room. As I did I heard screaming and excitement outside. It seems that the Goonies had just gotten over and people were slowly beginning to start back for their dorms. Then suddenly out of Dani’s room came running a girl wrapped up in a blanket with flip-flops and a guy shortly behind her. They were running toward me and before I had time to move, I found myself flat on my back with Dani on top of me and a guy next to me on the floor. (Note: at one point I had a fishbowl in my hands)

I heard a loud “holy crap” and then felt something cold and wet making its way through my shirt. Yeah, I know. In my sudden attack, I had flung the fishbowl in the air. It seems it flew straight up, flipped upside down and landed directly on the floor in between the guy and me.

At this point, the guy (whose name I still don’t know) had felt the water too. He jumped up frantically in an effort to keep at least a tiny bit of himself dry, but in the process of doing so he stuck his foot in my now empty fishbowl. Dani and I managed to get up with a minimal amount of disaster and at seeing this guy’s foot in a fishbowl I started laughing hysterically.

He shook his foot to try and get the bowl off but had little success. Both he and Dani had a panicked look on their faces as they did everything they could to get the bowl off. Meanwhile, amidst my laughter, I remembered my fish.

“Oh no! My fish!” I screamed.

“So what about your fish, what about my foot!” he shouted back pointing to the trapped appendage. Pankakes lay on the floor a little ways down the hallway flopping back and forth. I ran to him, scooped him up and dashed to my room. I found the pitcher of water in my fridge and quickly dropped him into it. Pankakes now being returned to the safety of water swam back and forth. He flapped his fins as if to say, “thank you, it’s about time”. Now that my fish was safe, I went back to the hallway to see to my bowl.

The same predicament still stood before me, a guy with his foot stuck, Dani trying to pry his foot out, and water covering the floor. I went to Dani and started helping her try to pull the bowl off. While doing so, I learned that his name was Eddie and that he was Dani’s boyfriend. It was now about ten minutes to midnight and I quickly realized why the pair was so freaked out. Not only were floor hours long over, but people were on the way back from watching the movie. That meant the two of them would be in a huge amount of trouble if they got caught.

Because I’m just such a nice person, I decided to help. We thought maybe if we put butter on Eddie’s foot, it would help it come out. So I went to my fridge and got out a stick of butter. Then we proceeded to slather it all over his foot. (I knew it wouldn’t work but I was very excited about the prospect of getting butter all over someone and thereby increasing their humiliation.) Needless to say, it didn’t work. Now we were left with a guy whom not only had his foot stuck in a fishbowl, but also had butter all over him.

We were running out of time, and Eddie was running out of patience. To make matter worse, we could hear people coming up the stairs. Dani and Eddie gave up on trying to free his foot and started heading for the door at the end of the hallway. Let me just tell you how amazing it is to see a guy limping down a hallway with a bowl on his foot. Words cannot describe it.

As soon as the door closed, the door at the other end of the hall opened and in came screaming a bunch of girls from my floor. I never found out what happened to Dani and Eddie, or how they managed to get the fishbowl off his foot. All I know is the next morning my bowl lay outside my door with a note on it. The note read “Thanks Johanna. Sorry about the trouble last night. Oh and please don’t write a story about this.”