It had been a long day. We’d be leaving early in the morning for the bus ride into the Loop and up Lake Shore Drive to Northwestern. But we gave the kids a bit of time to get snacks and stuff before retiring for the night.<\/p>\n
My alarm rang: 9:00<\/em> tape-in-time<\/em>.<\/p>\n I took the roster and walked into the hallway. Room by room I would knock, loudly over the din coming from within. The door would open. <\/p>\n “I need three faces. I see only two.” <\/p>\n “Noah is in the shower.” <\/p>\n “Ask him to peer out.”<\/p>\n “Noah! Mr. Hasan needs to see you.”<\/p>\n The bathroom door would crack open. A face obscured by emerge from the steam. So I would put a check mark next to their room in the roster, remind them of wake-up time, say good night, and pull the door shut. Then I would press a strip of blue painter’s tape across the door and frame.<\/p>\n The idea is this. There is no reason (short of a fire alarm) that their door should ever open. If it does, there is no way to pull it shut and reapply the tape from the inside. Anti-shenanigans assurance<\/em>.We sleep soundly, knowing that they’re where they’re supposed to be.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n Room 433 was at the end of the hall, around a corner, distressingly close to the stairs that lead to the fifth floor where the girls’ rooms were. Jake, Jack and John were assigned to that room, only one of whom was there. Jake was in the lobby talking to a Chicago friend who came to visit. Jack was also in the lobby getting another key card, because he always seems to lose his. That left John alone in the room. As I walked up, he was standing in the doorway (waiting for something?).<\/p>\n “Why hello, Mr. Hasan,” he said.<\/p>\n “Hi John. They’ll be here soon,” I said. “Just stay put.”<\/p>\n He assured me he would as he closed the door. I turned away and walked to room 429.<\/p>\n Mere seconds later I heard a sound in the hallway and turned to see John peering around the corner (waiting to see if I was going back to my room?). <\/p>\n “John. Go to your room,” I said. “It’s after 9 o’clock.”<\/p>\n He went back. And so did I, to make sure he closed the door. But of course I couldn’t tape him in, as his roommates were not there.<\/p>\n …<\/p>\n Eventually, Jake and Jake did return, and I was able to tape the three of them into room 433. Then I turned away and walked to room 425. Mere seconds later I heard the sound of a door opening. Painter’s tape snapping. <\/p>\n I was only three steps away from the room I had just taped shut. I quickly turned around. There was John looking up sheepishly with Jake standing in the shadows with a toothbrush in his mouth.<\/p>\n I looked at John, whose hand was still on the doorknob. He looked up at the ripped painter’s tape.<\/p>\n “Well, that’s unfortunate.”<\/p>\n The rest of the night was uneventful.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It had been a long day. We’d be leaving early in the morning for the bus ride into the Loop and up Lake Shore Drive to Northwestern. But we gave the kids a bit of time to get snacks and stuff before retiring for the night. My alarm rang: 9:00 tape-in-time. I took the roster […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6862"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6863,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6862\/revisions\/6863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}