"Is there life on other planets? I don't know. It's possible life on other planets is not intelligent. There's certainly a lot of life on Earth that is not intelligent."
- My Evolution Professor
It comes as no surprise to anyone that people, as a whole, are generally pretty stupid. There are some jobs that see this more often, and ours is woefully one of them. As resident assistants, we see the slow and painful death of rational thought on the daily. This is both pathetic and horrifying, but my best advice here is to learn to laugh at it. As aggravating as it feels to have a drunken resident call you a bitch at three in the morning, nothing is more hilarious than retelling the story the next night.
Case in point: my on-call from the night of October 9th. This story is long, long, complicated, and long, so I'll spare you most of the details. The important bits are a couple of conversations we had with some less-than-pleased residents. Another RA and I had entered a room for what we assumed was a simple noise violation.
Instead of handing over IDs, apologizing, and turning the music down, this particular room of boys lied about their names, lied about the ID numbers, lied about each other, tried to hide, tried to escape, and all in all drove us to insanity and back.
First, three residents tried hiding in a closet. I would like to point out this closet did not have a door. Apparently they subscribe to the newborn philosophy of "If I turn my back so I can't see her, she obviously cannot see me." Spoiler alert, idiot: I can still you.
Second, the entire room refused to identify the young boy passed out in one of the beds.
"Who is this boy?"
"We don't know."
"You don't know who he is. You just have a random boy sleeping in your bed, under your covers."
"Um. Yeah?"
"Do you... think that I believe that?"
"Ok. Fine. He's a recruit."
"I don't know what that means."
"For sports. He's here looking at the school."
"Looking at the school? Are you telling me this kid is in high school?"
The entire room looked down at their feet. So he's in high school. Brilliant.
Third, there was Mark*. Mark was not happy about being written up. Mark liked to stand a little too close to me. Mark liked to yell. Mark had bad breath and a worse temper. Mark is now banned from ever entering our building.
And then there was Daniel. Sweet, stupid Daniel. Daniel was the clever little shit who thought he could leave the room and avoid any trouble. What Daniel failed to consider, however, was that already knew that he lived in the room, meaning we knew where he lived, what his name is, and that he is a huge jerk. All right, we don't have that last one on file, but some things you figure out pretty quickly.
You would think after escaping a room, it would be a good idea to leave altogether. Daniel thought he'd hide in a staircase. You would think that after being found a second time, it would be a good idea to just hand over your ID. Daniel thought he'd lie, say he did not have his ID, and hand us his debit card instead.
His debit card, which happened to say his older brother's name on it. His debit card: the backup ID for his older brother's ID, which he used to illegally enter bars and buy alcohol.
Oh, my darling Daniel. Your stupidity is my entertainment.
So what's the lesson here? That people are dumb, and it's funny? Unfortunately, no, this is not the lesson. The lesson is that people panic. When residents are in trouble, fight or flight kicks in. It really is better to just stick it out, but most people don't realize that right off the bat. They want to leave or they want to argue. They do this because they are scared. I'm not saying they're cowards, but they know there will be consequences. They forget the consequences of running or yelling are actually worse. They make mistakes, they usually regret them, and they usually are genuinely sorry later on (when they've sobered up).
I know I'm not the only one this has happened to. Tell me your biggest moments of stupidity. If anything, we can all at least get a laugh.
*All names changed for privacy.
