My night without shoes

I love telling this story and rarely get the chance to explain it fully because it just takes too much time to tell only a little bit of action, but I thought that any readers needed a lighthearted read after my last post, so here we go. It takes place the second Friday of the school year, but I feel you need a little bit of background on how the year was going so far.

My first two weeks of college opened my eyes a lot. My roommate, whom I meshed with perfectly on paper, turned out to be a bit more wild than I anticipated, so we got off to a rocky start. The girls in my hall all seemed more interested in fraternity parties than comparing schedules and the boys...well, boys will be boys. It was like they were at camp for the first time, each one claiming his turf while trying to impress whichever girl happened to be watching. That sounds more like an Animal Planet special, actually. I had met a lot of people, mainly thanks to my roommate. My classes were boring; I felt like I chose the wrong college. I was overwhelmed and wanted nothing more than to hide out in my room like a hermit. The first weekend was Labor Day weekend. I went to my boyfriend's apartment 6 hours away and spent most of the weekend complaining to him how awful it was, fretting about the return and how to survive the rest of the school year.

On the eve of my night without shoes, it seemed surviving the first two weeks of college was enough reason to celebrate with a dorm party in the boys hall. My roommate had already cozyed up to one of the boys living in the room that was hosting it and she invited me to attend. I agreed, planning only to stay for 10 minutes, then return to Guitar Hero in our room. When I got there, they were mixing drinks (mainly vodka and whatever fruity drink they had), playing Halo/Call of Duty/other popular multi-player FPS and smoking weed in the far corner by the open window. I recognized a couple of people - an older guy I had met my first night at the college, some other people my roommate had introduced me to, two girls in my Journalism class, and a girl who I had met at dinner that very day. We shall call this young lady R.

R was on her way to another party with her track friends from high school. These friends were a girl we shall call C (who lived right across the hall from me) and a male senior we shall call D. D's friends were the ones hosting the party and he had promised C and R that he would take them to a proper college party in the first month of school. They were cashing in tonight, and also doing him a favor. D was only attending the party because he felt like he had to. He had recently drunkenly made out with the host's best friend and was terribly guilty about the situation and needed to clear it up with her group. C and R were moral support.

How do I know this? When R was leaving the dorm party to meet her friends, two RA's walked by. They noticed the large number of people and entered the room. I was in the doorway when they walked in. As soon as the female RA opened her mouth, I was hit with an overwhelming urge to run away as fast as I could. Call it fight-or-flight or whatever, I just knew that I had to get out of there. I had my ID card in my right back pocket, my cell phone in my left back, my key in my front left. I was set. R and her friends were at the elevators. They had seen the RA's and decided to leave while they could. I asked if I could come with.

It isn't until we are all in C's car, driving to D's apartment that I realize that I don't have any shoes on. I was too busy trying to process that I had just ran away from getting written up for being in the same room as alcohol and drugs. My roommate was texting me, telling me to just stay in the room. C and D were trying to introduce themselves but none of it really sunk in until D pointed out that I didn't have shoes on. "Do you want to turn around?" he asked. "Not really. I don't want to go back there. What if they know it's me who left?" The others look around, wondering why the agreed to take the girl currently freaking out in the backseat. R is nice enough to change the subject, hoping to calm me down, maybe stop me from shaking. "What's your major?" D and I realize that we share similar interests, so we get to talking about cameras while the others listen, uninterested, until we reach D's apartment.

D's roommates are at their apartment getting ready to head out to other parties. All three stop and ask me where my shoes are. Each time I turned so red, you would have thought they were asking personal questions about my love life or something. As I had this thought, I realized that I had a cell phone in my pocket that I could contact my boyfriend with. This calms me a little, but the prospect of attending a party where there would be more hard alcohol, illegal substances and general debauchery made me panic even more. I was a good kid, I never drank or smoked and, for the most part, my group didn't either. In fact, I made a point to stray away from those who did.

When we arrive at the party, I feel completely lost. I didn't have a very good grasp of where I was in the city and it was already pretty late so I was a bit tired. Most of the people there were seniors and over 21. There were more guys than girls, but I guess that's kind of typical because no one seemed to care too much. The girls weren't in any state to care. After five minutes at the party, I completely understood how you get those crazy pictures of girls all over each other looking stupid. The rest of the night is kind of a blur. Some drunk dudes come over and try to dance with us girls, who are drinking very little (I think they were doing that for my benefit and I'll always appreciate it). I spent most of the night in a state of shock. It was just a normal party, but it was my first experience around this scene. And I had no shoes.

By the end of the night D is completely trashed and R is getting there. C drives us home about 4am. I enter the room quietly as to not wake up my roommate, but she is still up, waiting for me. I think this is the first night I know that she actually cares about me. She said that she knew I would be a bit freaked out and she was here if I wanted to talk. I was too tired to really appreciate this at the time, but took it up the next afternoon when we examined my socks. I swear, if anyone ever takes the time to go through my socks they will find a pair darker than the rest. No amount of Shout could return them to the same level of dirt of my other pairs.

After that night I knew I could survive at my university. I felt more welcomed by my roommate's (and soon my) group. I made friends in my classes and in my hall. I thought of this because I recently did my laundry. I was trying to match my socks based on how worn out they were and I found the socks from that night...they were the only ones I could match.