A time of the signs, part 2

Hello again, my friends. Glad to have you with me on this Wednesday. Seriously, I don't make that shit up. When I left you mid-story yesterday, a campus police officer had just noticed the stolen signs around my room. Remember that? Wasn't that fun? Without further ado, here is the conclusion to that story. There will be no further commercial interruptions.

The officer continued questioning the young lady, who had started to come down from her massive amounts of hallucinogens. She didn't ask her any of the questions that television officers would've asked, but rather seemed to chat to determine if there was any medical danger of any sort. Upon concluding, the officer turned back to me. "Normally I'd be filing a 'Stolen Items' report instead of an 'Items Found' one," she said. "I'll talk to your Residence Director about this and let him decide how you should be punished. This was a unique situation since you were actually helping someone, so I won't get us further involved in this matter." She took all of the laminated signs with her and left. I thanked her profusely for her leniency, especially since I knew the RD well and couldn't see him throwing the book at us.

The next day, Rockabye and I went to the RD's office. His name was also Peter, but since he was about 6'5, everyone called him "Big Pete." He was a great guy, and I really should look him him up. (Oops, that was almost a commercial interruption. Sorry about that.) He couldn't help but smile a little as he told us, "Come on, you guys know better than that." He asked if the officer took everything or if we still had some property in our room that belonged to the University. "Well, she didn't take the Institute for Crustal Studies sign," I said, hoping that he'd say there was no harm in keeping it. I was wrong, though. We apologized again, and he let us off very easy. He told us to write a letter apologizing to that office and turn it in with the sign. That we could do, we said. As we were walking out, I turned back and asked, "Um, do we have to sign our real names?" He thought for a second, and then with an all-too-knowing smile, shook his head no. "Just apologize and turn it in."

For many folks, they would scribble "Sorry" on a sheet of paper and call it a day. My friends and I are not like many folks though, and we were looking forward to the task. So that night, we typed up a couple of paragraphs. I'm paraphrasing here, but it went a little something like this:

To Whom it May Concern:
There comes a time in which every man must face his own demons. For us, the demons took the form of the attached property that we are now returning to you. For weeks, we walked by this building and marveled at the sign that told of Crustal Studies - Crustal Studies, for Pete's sake!

Then the whispers started. We knew they were likely coming from the devil on our shoulder and not his angelic counterpart, but we could not ignore them. The whispers got louder and louder. "Take it," they said, "Take it. It should be yours." When our resistance wore down and we succumbed to the pressure, we freed the sign from its brick and mortar prison, and we started a new life with it in our home. But love and freedom were not enough for the sign, and so it must make its way back to you.

We apologize for taking what was never ours in the first place (despite the obvious connection) and for any inconvenience as people wandered aimlessly around campus in search of a place to study crust. It is with a heavy heart that we return this sign to you. We can only ask for your forgiveness and a promise that you will treat the sign well.

Apologetically,
The Crustal Bandits

For artistic reasons and a proper sense of closure, we slid the letter and sign under the door to the office at midnight. A week later, it was up again in the same place. This time though, it was joined by four screws to make a second heist more improbable. We could've done it, of course, had we not been reformed. Over the next five years, I smiled every time I saw the sign, and I couldn't help imagining the person's face who received our letter. He probably looked around briefly for any sign of someone near, then read the letter, shook his head, and said, "Fucking weirdos." Man I wish I could've been there.

So there you have it, gentle readers. My friends and I had a nice, peaceful relationship with the sign until drugs got in the way and screwed everything up. It's the standard American tragedy. See you tomorrow.

A time of the signs

Good morning, and welcome once again a Tuesday edition of UOPTA. These tend to actually fall on Tuesdays, so it's not just a catchy name (it's functional too!). I hope you all had bearable Mondays and are pleased to see 20% of the workweek already behind us.

As I wrote yesterday, my lovely wife and I drove back to L.A. from Las Vegas on Sunday. On the way there and back, the sign for Zzyzx Rd. always stands out. Not only is it just cool to see and say, but it reminds me of "Captain Zzyzx" and "Doctor Syntax," two books that I've ready by an author named Michael Petracca. One is a sequel to the other, but I'm not positive of the order right now. The sign also reminds me that my friend Adam once said that he wanted to throw a party somewhere in the middle of nowhere off that exit just because it would be a cool meeting place. Lastly, seeing that cool sign reminds me of my history with signs.

During my freshman year of college, my friends and I occasionally were known to...aw hell, there's no way to sugarcoat this, we stole signs around campus. It started off pretty harmless, really. If there was a laminated single sheet of paper taped to a door saying something that we thought was funny for one reason or another, it might end up in our backpacks. If a similar sign was just hanging out on top of some stanchions or leaning against a counter, we thought it might need a better home. I particularly liked ones with arrows on them in to help direct people in unnecessarily confusing hallways (like to the student mailboxes or the post office in the University Center). Over the first few months, we'd amassed a pretty nice collection of signs and put them up in our residence hall room as mini trophies.

And then, one day, we saw the Mother of All Should-Be-Stolen Signs. There, on a wall right outside the entrance to the Girvetz building, it called to us: "Institute for Crustal Studies." How were we supposed to resist something like that? There was a problem though: this was no flimsy, laminated sheet of paper. Au contraire, this was a large, hard plastic sign stuck to a brick wall with some very strong adhesive. We then had to make a choice. Either we allow ourselves to be content with walking by the sign and laughing from time to time, or we step up our game and plan a more difficult heist. Oh readers, you know me so well.

The night of the extraction arrived. Even though no one had been near that building since about 6pm, we decided that doing it at midnight would decrease our chances at being spotted (and it sounded way cooler too). We dressed in dark clothing, but not in all black, because that would be too conspicuous upon returning to our hall. With a couple of people watching the bike paths for any signs of movement, the others went to work. With a mini flashlight and screwdriver to use for chiseling and leverage, we slowly got through all four sticky corners. With half of the sign conspicuously sticking out of a backpack, we made it back to the room I shared with Rockabye and celebrated our victory.

A couple of months went by, and the sign was proudly displayed in our room (with all of the other liberated ones) and it was quite the conversation piece. "Where'd you get that thing?" people would ask. "I don't know what you're talking about," I'd say. "What are Crustal Studies?" they'd ask. "I prefer not to know," I'd say. "How is it that someone can be so wise and yet so humble at the same time?" they'd wonder. At least that's the sense I got; they were probably too shy to ask that one aloud.

One fateful night, things on our floor got a little different. A young lady with whom I was acquaintances and a friend of hers decided to get "really fucked up." I'm not a drug connoisseur by any means, so I had to take their word for it that taking a lot of vitamin C before doing 'shrooms would enhance the effect. (My previous experience with mushrooms was limited to Super Mario.) What I do know is that they were bombed out of their mind. It got so bad and uncomfortable for them that one of them asked their friends to call campus police. Someone thought it would be a good idea to separate them, so the friend (who I had never met before), was arbitrarily stationed in our room. She laid down on Rockabye's bed and sweated and cried as I spent about an hour telling her everything was going to be fine. She thanked me once every thirty seconds for keeping her calm, and eventually and officer showed up to check her out. I've never seen someone on drugs so excited about seeing the police, but she wanted an authority figure to tell her she wasn't going to die. Don't do drugs, kids.

The officer was a middle-aged woman who asked the young lady a series of questions and kept reassuring her that she'd be ok. I remember feeling impressed that the questioning seemed free of judgment and really just coming from a place of restoring order. She also thanked me for my help in this matter and keeping the young lady calm. As I started to tell her it was no problem at all, I saw her eyes start to scan the room behind my head. "I assume you're planning on returning these items on your walls," she stated. "Yes, officer," I told her. I thought to myself, "Well wouldn't that just be great if I get busted for being a good Samaritan?"

Dun dun DUN! Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion tomorrow, folks. I know you hate it when I pull that shit, but I'll take any opportunity to turn one post into two if there's a logical break in the action. See you back here tomorrow, homies.