During freshman year of college at Penn State, like most everyone else there, I lived in a dorm. Very early on, one of my new roommates had invited some guests over, and I was down with it; after all, college is supposed to be about the experiences and the people you meet.
Flash to ten minutes after they arrived: they took out some weed and began rolling up joints. What a way to start college! I was pissed off, but what truly angered me is that they used my knife set to slice and dice their weed. Yeah, that’s right, I was madder that used my knife than about the fact that they were attempting to smoke weed in the apartment. I’m sure I angered the potheads when I told their asses not to use my stuff to slice and dice their weed, but they went on and did their thing. After that event, I can’t remember if they ever returned, but I doubt it and clearly I don’t care.
During the subsequent few months, plenty happened involving my roommate, but most of those are stories for another time. Then, a few days before the most major incident of them all, one of the apartments in a different building decided to have a weekend party. Whomever was hosting the event decided to charge an admittance fee to get in the door. From my understanding, my roommate — we’ll call him Bob (I changed that fool’s name) — refused to pay the fee. He soon became involved a series of altercations and someone present suspected that he had a weapon. The person that reported it waited a day or two before informing the campus police.
Days after the party, I was coming back from a class and saw a few police cars parked outside my dorm building. I literally said to myself “ohhhhh, some shit is going down.”
I entered my apartment building and opened my apartment door to find the State Police; they stopped me and questioned me about my roommate, Bob. For the next hour, after the interrogation, my other roommates and I sat in the living room while the State Police rummaged through all of our stuff. They had a search warrant to search his things, but I gave permission for mine.
The cops went through the first two rooms and my car, which all turned out to be fine. Then they proceed into Bob and his direct roommate’s room, and guess what they found? No, they didn’t find the alleged weapon from the other night, but they did find a substantial amount of weed. As it turns out, not only was he smoking it, he was selling it locally (after importing it from his home town). Bob was arrested on the spot and kicked out of The Pennsylvania State University within the same day. That was the end of Bob, though a few days later, his mother came back to pick up his things.
I don’t know if I had mentally blocked out some subtle yet evident facts, but there were key clues that would have given away his dealer status:
- Random people knocking on our apartment door for Bob.
- Bob having two-minute visits with guests — who the fuck has random people just stopping by for short visits?
- Never seeing him on campus taking classes.
- Oh yeah, and the weed party the first week of school!
I felt like I was the criminal, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong. My personal space was violated, though I understand in the circumstances it had to be done. This was supposed to be a fun time in my life, and there I was sitting in a living room waiting for the police to search through my things.
Looking back at those events, I see where Jay-Z was coming from in his song “99 Problems:”
Well my glove compartment is locked
So are the trunk in the back
And I know my rights so you gon’ need a warrant for that- Jay Z
I can clearly remember the moment when an officer approached me and told me that they were going to search my things. That conversation went like so: “we are going to do it, and if you refuse, you’ll waste our and your time because we will get a search warrant.” When you’re 18 and put in a situation like this one, you feel obliged to do what you’re told; however, I had legal rights and I gave them up.
At that moment it became clear to me that some people came to college to escape the hold their parents had placed on them. Some students thought it was fine to do whatever they wanted to; it’s not! Sometimes, all it takes is one guy doing the wrong thing to let everybody else at college have a bad time.
Sorry that there’s no moral of the story attached, but if there were to be one, it might be “don’t screw up, even at college.”
