When I was home recently, I was out to dinner with a lot of old friends. I was sat next to Peter, Greg, and Eric; all three of which I lived with for my junior year of college at WIU. We were talking about what life was like in that house; the failed plan to host volleyball parties, the ceiling painted brown, the constant traps we would set for each other that were legitimately dangerous. One thing I had forgot was ironically the scariest thing to happen to me in that house.
It was sometime in the spring semester, when the weather was turning nice and the college kids were roaming the streets again looking for boozy good times and all the open-door house parties. Our house was on Calhoun, a block away from Party Central, Adams Street. Adams Street in Macomb, IL has a half-mile stretch of rental housing and fraternity living that seems ideal for giant parties. As a freshman, I wandered up and down that street every Friday and Saturday night. In the dark, the houses were only illuminated by the dim streetlights and the glowing blacklights inside. Apparently, it’s some sort of college house rule that you have to have your real lights off and colored lights on. They houses were also decorated with rope lights and spare Christmas lights to add a touch of pizazz. For a 19-year-old goof, Adams Street was a magical, sparkly wonderland where there was no curfew.
In real life, this binge-drinking utopia was the roughest looking part of Macomb. The houses were falling apart, suffering from peeling paint, and littered with the foulest of garbages. The first time I drove down Adams Street during the day, I was genuinely shocked that I had not been Shanghai’d and sold into white slavery during any of these parties.
So, during my junior year, I lived next to a constant parade of sloven irresponsibility. Needless to say, I locked the door a great deal. It’s a habit I have picked up from my mother, who would freak out whenever the doors would be left unlocked. Unlocked doors led to axe murderers walking into your home and axe murdering you. A locked door could kept all axe murderers at bay. Although, if this were any axe murderer worth his salt, he would just axe down the door anyway, but I digress.
In the house I lived in, there were two bathrooms. I lived on the top floor, where there was a bathroom, but I had to walk through Greg’s bedroom to get to it. We had it worked out that I would use the downstairs bathroom, and share it with Peter. So, in the middle of the night, I climbed down the creaky steps, being sure to avoid the one broken step that would trip me up and send me hurtling into the floor below. I took care of business, and as I am about to go upstairs I hear the front door open.
Now, at this point, it’s about 3 or 4 o’clock in the AM. I’m here, Greg’s upstairs sleeping, Peter never goes anywhere, and Eric had moved out after graduating. And I hear a dude’s voice that I had never heard before. He was whispering to other people. I heard some girls giggling as things in my kitchen were being moved around. I heard a door or cabinet open. Oh God, someone’s in our house! What do I do? What do I do? Should I open the door and scare them? I can’t tell how many people are out there, and I know I can’t take them with my wiry arms and pudgy torso. What is they have a weapon? Like a knife! I don’t want to get stabbed! Is there a weapon in here? A pipe or something? A plunger stick? A towel? Oh god, I hope Peter wakes up cause he could karate all of them. Why can’t he wake up and save me!
Stuff is still moving, I hear more giggling, and then the door closes. Silence. The coast is clear. I creak open the door and do a quick check of our stuff. The living room is untouched. Still have our DVD player and Gamecube. No papers or mail missing from our table. But there is something different.
Sitting in the middle of the kitchen, in one of our dinette chairs, is an open bag of potting soil. Sitting there quiet and peaceful, like a fat child taking a Thanksgiving nap. No reason, no note, no nothing. I latched the door and ran to Greg’s room.
“Greg? Greg! Wake up! Greg, someone broke into our house! Greg!” Greg lolled his head up for a second, sleepily glowering at me.
“Yeah? Meaaahhhhh,” he mumbled as his head hit his pillow.
“GREG!” Nothing.
I ran down to Peter’s room and knocked on the door.
“Peter? Peter!” Knock knock knock. Nothing. Still sleeping. I dare not open his door, or I might face a sleepy and confused Peter who will probably karate me in the face.
So, with nothing missing, and nothing broken, the only thing to do was to go back to my room and have a cardiac arrest. A strange bag of soil sat in the kitchen all night, as some sort of strange Dadaist, surreal act. Who breaks in and gives someone soil? No one’s guerrilla art is this obtuse.
The next morning, I told Greg and Peter the full story, and they promptly laughed in my face for being such a wuss. I was saying that I was relieved that nothing was stolen, and if anything, we were up a bag of soil. As I was saying that, Greg went to grab a beer from the fridge, but there wasn’t any. All of the beer Greg had bought a few nights prior was gone. I hadn’t drank it, and Peter doesn’t drink.
So, I guess I spoke too soon. We had been robbed, by one of those faceless party people who was in a pinch for beer. Such a pinch he decided to break into a house and take whatever he could find. In payment, he left us a generous helping of nitrate-rich soil. This seemingly random act was finally given some clarity. It was that sort of drunken logic that makes every impulse correct instead of a malicious home invasion.
“Dude, we are out of beer…”
“Oh man… and the bar’s closed. And the liquor store’s closed…”
“Whoa, dude… let’s just go take some beer from a house!”
“That’s straight-up stealing, dude!”
“Not if we give them something in return. That’s totally the barter system! In effect!”
“What should we give them?”
“How about this bag of dirt? I only needed it for one Biology project, and it was like 5 bucks at Farm and Home. That’s, like, enough for 7 beers!”
“Let’s do this…”
