The Orion Online

Issue date: 8/27/08 Section: Back to School

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I looked up at the skeleton of the Student Services Center and wanted to explore it, see the city from a new angle and scale the rafters like a metropolitan chimp.

This was the perfect construction site. If Jackie Chan choreographed a fight scene in this building it would win an Oscar.

I envisioned myself at the top of it, watching that golden stream sail over the edge and onto the sidewalk four stories below.

Peeing in strange places is fun.

But my friends and I only made it to the second floor when we saw the flashing police lights and heard yelling over the loudspeaker.

I asked one friend if it would be wise to turn ourselves in.

"No, run!"

And we did.

And I hopped that fence in half a second, caught my shoe on the top of it, sliced my right palm open on a metal jag and landed face first on the concrete in a puddle of muddy water.

The officers let my friend go because he could walk in a straight line, but handcuffed my other friend and me and took us to the luxurious Butte County Jail, where I dined on stale store-brand cereal, had my hand stitched and waited in soaked jeans for my friend to be released from the drunk tank.

My blood-alcohol content wasn't as high as his, so I got to stay in the waiting room and watch Fox News and equally enlightening programs for about six hours.

We were booted out as the sun came up and left without a ride, a half-hour drive from home, on a school day. We eventually got some sleeping friends to answer their phones and bring us some blankets for the miserable ride home.

That was December 2007, and I'd rather not do that again.

Laws are put in place to curb our more primitive urges, which are sacred and awesome, and balance them with modern social values, which are beneficial and practical but also tedious and lame. So most people who enjoy life will have a run-in with the law at some point.

Mohandas Gandhi had his because he knew the world needs peace.

Alice Paul had hers because she knew the world needs equality.

George Carlin had his because he knew the world needs dirty jokes.

I had mine because I was bored, and all I got out of it was a $69 course with the Campus Alcohol and Drug Education Center and a scar that's barely visible and not even on my face. Not quite as noble an outlaw experience as I would have liked my first time.

Shauna Quinn, program manager for CADEC, said members of the organization realize that many college students will experiment with alcohol and drugs, and that her organization's goal is to provide accurate information about what these substances do.

"We're not about abstinence," she said. "We're totally about education."

Student Judicial Affairs makes students take these courses when they are caught with, or under the influence of, drugs or alcohol on campus.

A few freshmen were kicked out this year before school even started, Quinn said.

"For some reason, the students don't think we're serious - they don't think housing is serious," she said.

This is college. Students should have fun, but if they plan on indulging in those beautiful primal urges that keep them from turning into robots, they should save themselves and police officers a lot of hassle and do it sober or do it somewhere safe and accepting.

Walter can be reached at
copyeditor@theorion.com

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