Our dog threw up in our bed today.  That was a pleasant surprise to wake up to.

Speaking of throwing up...

Ahh.. college.  Those were the days.  Many of my college classmates have gone on to become respectable members of society.  They are parents, leaders, intellectuals, and molders of young minds among other things.  Also, at one time or another, I witnessed many of them throwing up.  Like I said, college was the best.

Today, however, I'd like to share a story about an incident where I pointedly did not witness somebody throwing up.  It was the night I hung out in Jerry's dorm room.

Jerry was a guy who lived a few doors down the hall from me in the dorm I lived in my first year.  He was from Oman and his real name wasn't Jerry, but he asked us to call him that.  I guess it's a somewhat common practice for people in that part of the world to choose an American-sounding name when they come here.  I don't know if they think we can't pronounce their real names or if it helps them feel like they fit in better, but at any rate he asked us to call him Jerry, so that's what we called him.

Jerry was a decidedly short man and also decidedly a little bit crazy.  But overall I liked him.  There was one weekend where I didn't have anything going on.  I think my roommate might have been out of town or off doing something else and I don't know what any of my other friends were doing.  All I know is I was looking for something to do and Jerry invited me to come to a little shindig he was hosting in his dorm room.  I definitely did not have any better offers, so I agreed to go.

I don't remember who all was there.  There were a few people.  Not a super large amount because, after all, it was a dorm room and it wasn't like 100 people could fit inside there.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say maybe seven or eight people were there.  I don't recall specifically who was there aside from Jerry and me, but I do remember there were these two guys there that I didn't know, that it turned out weren't students from the college, and weren't even from the immediate area.  I don't think they even knew Jerry.  I'm not really sure who they were or what they were doing there,  but it didn't stop me from hanging out and drinking beer with them all night.  

Well, actually, I didn't stay all night, and this is the important part.  At some point, one of the dudes I didn't know seemed to decide that I had drank too much and was on the verge of passing out and insisted on helping me make it back to my dorm room.  I had drank a lot, but I don't think I was in imminent danger of passing out, and I'm pretty sure I could have made it back fine on my own since I lived literally like two doors down on the other side of the hall.  Nonetheless, I decided to go home and go to bed.  I thanked the guy for his unnecessary help and he went back to the party.  In the meantime, I climbed into bed and was out like a light pretty quickly 

I often seem to stick it out to the bitter end of parties, but I left early that night and I'm glad I did because I was woken up by someone pounding on my door the next morning yelling at me that I needed to clean up my puke.  I was very confused because I didn't puke and I didn't know what they were talking about.  

I walked out into the hallway and that's when I learned what the fuss was about.  Someone from the party the previous night had unsuccessfully tried to make a run for the restroom.  There was a trail of dried puke puddles leading from Jerry's room all the way down the hallway towards the bathroom.  Needless to say the other people that lived in our hallway were pissed about it.  Somehow the word got out that I had been at the party, which is why I was getting yelled at.  I don't know how people knew I was there.  I think maybe Jerry threw me under the bus in an attempt to avoid taking the blame himself.

Luckily I was able to protest my innocence.  I honestly hadn't been blackout drunk and I could remember pretty much everything that happened the night before.  I can't remember the details well now because of the passage of time.  That was a lot of years ago now, but in the moment it was only the night before.  I knew I hadn't puked.  And I also knew the puke hadn't been in the hallway when I left the party and went to bed.  Whatever happened, it was after I left.  I really didn't see how I bore any responsibility for it at all.

Whether people took me at my word or not, the evidence was largely on my side, or at least more damning to Jerry than to me.  After all, the puke trail clearly originated from his door.  He was refusing to clean it up as well and claimed it was one of those two guys that nobody seemed to know.  The thing is that was the problem.  Nobody knew them.  They showed up from who knows where, drank a ton of beer, puked in our hallway, and then disappeared without a trace.  Jerry, as the host of the party, clearly bore the most responsibility.  

It literally took like a full day and people were getting angrier and angrier about the fact that there was puke in our shared hallway, which I totally understand.  It was super gross.  Finally Jerry realized he wasn't going to be able to avoid taking care of the mess and he ended up cleaning up the puke.  I did feel a little bad for him, but I sure as heck wasn't taking any responsibility for that.  

I still remained friendly with Jerry after that, but I don't think I ever hung out in his room again.  Too risky.

Man, college was the best.  I just don't have any stories like that these days.