[natural sound: dorm door slamming shut, trying to turn the locked handle, music fades in]
The panic of realizing your wildcard is still on your desk as the door to your dorm room shuts behind you is a feeling many first-year students, including Sophia Cheng, have become all too familiar with.
SOPHIA CHENG: I walked, I remember vividly, like three steps out of my door, and then right before it slammed shut, I had a realization and out loud at like 8 AM in the morning, I said “no!” Then I did a pivot, and I turned around and then saw it slam shut. And then I had to do the walk of shame to the basement.
Within the past three quarters, Cheng estimates she has been locked out of her dorm room eight or nine times.
CHENG: So, in fall quarter — maybe like week two or week three — my roommate put up a piece of paper. She taped a piece of paper to the inside of the door that says, ‘do you have your key?’ with three question marks and three hearts. And I imagine the hearts mean that she loves me despite the fact that she has had to open the door for me many times when I’ve locked myself out.
And she’s not alone. Since moving in, first year Claire Boma has also become well-acquainted with the temp desk, where students can receive a temporary access card to unlock their room.
CLAIRE BOMA: I have been locked out too many times to count if I’m going to be honest. One spring quarter and then mostly it was like fall quarter because I wasn’t used to like having to carry my ID around.
Each resident receives one free lock-out every quarter, before they start getting charged 10 dollars for each subsequent lock-out. But getting a temp card hasn’t always been easy for first year Emmett Martin-Rosenthal.
EMMETT MARTIN-ROSENTHAL: I’ve, you know, forgotten to deadbolt my door while taking a shower and then had to go knock on a friend’s door and get clothes and go to the area desk. That’s happened three times in winter quarter as well, so it was cold.
Boma said her worst lock out experience was right before a 10 AM class.
BOMA: I took a shower and I forgot to bring my phone with my ID in it. And unfortunately, it was really early in the morning, and I think my roommate was already gone because she had like an 8 a.m. So, I was like, stuck with nothing but a bathrobe in the lounge.
My RA was not really responding, and I had no idea how much time had passed because I had no electronics on me. So, I was actually out there for, I think, like almost two hours. And I just thought I was going crazy with how much time had passed. Like, I just thought I was bored. And I was losing my mind, but in reality, it really had been two hours.
Eventually someone came out and we had to call like the RA on-duty number and send someone to unlock my room, but that was probably my worst lockout story.
While you may enjoy teasing your friends about getting locked out, sometimes, it’s just out of a their control. Emmett learned this when the card reader for his dorm in Elder died during fall quarter.
MARTIN-ROSENTHAL: It was a Friday night. I was out, hanging out with some friends. It was like 3 a.m. And I come back to my room and all I want to do is go to bed, because the next day, there’s a football game. So I’m so tired. I get back to my room. I put my card against the door, nothing happens. And I’m like, okay, this is bad. I walk, I’m thinking, my cards’s broken. The card reader isn’t reading it. Something’s up. So I’m going to get a temp card. So I walk all the way to Shapiro, I get a temp card, I come back, it doesn’t work.
So I call the RA on duty, and he’s like, ‘Maybe you should get another temp card. Maybe that one was broken, too.’ So I go, all the way back, I get another temp card, I come back, it doesn’t work. And at this point, I’m like, it’s the card reader, it’s not gonna work. I need to call residential services. At this point, it’s like four in the morning. And I call them, and they’re like, “We’ll be there in 15 minutes.” I’m sitting on the floor, right outside my room for an hour and 15 minutes. So I don’t get into my room until like 5:15 And when I finally do, I collapse and go to sleep.
But what about the students dolling out those live-saving temp cards? Senior Lulu Abathra takes shifts for the temp desks on South Campus.
LULU ABATHRA: People live in Allison and then get locked out of their rooms upstairs and they come down in like the craziest Halloween costumes or like, I don’t know, their towels or like their face masks, just like people looking all different kinds of things. And they’re always so embarrassed, but I’m like, this literally happens every single day. Don’t worry, it’s chill.
While the walk of shame to the temp desk may feel mortifying, it truly does happen to the best of us. And, hey, maybe remembering your wildcard can be a sophomore year resolution.
[natural sound: wildcard unlocking the door]
Sahana Unni, WNUR News.
