Roofed

Remember back in elementary school when tennis balls got misplaced onto the roof of the building? It was back in those days when the janitor had such authority as he stood on top of the roof, throwing down these balls to massive hordes of students hoping to pick up a free one (or the one that they lost). The tennis ball was so central to recess… it was our recess. From playing catch in the field, to handball against the wall, to playing foot hockey in the yard, us kids found countless hours of entertainment from this simple little ball.

I recalled this because, last night, I, with eight other people, got “roofed.” No, we weren’t thrown up there by mistake, but we were up there. After a most excellent trip to Morty’s ($0.49 wings at the best wing joint in the area… there’s no losing there, unless you don’t like wings.. weirdos), a group of us decide that we should do something fun. Since it was Thursday, there were not a whole lot of places to go. So we decide to hang out at St. Paul’s.

Now I don’t remember who suggested it, but someone said that we could (or should) go up on the roof and hang out. John’s window has arguably the worst view in the college (it sees two different levels of roofing and a sheet of brown metal), but hey, it opens up onto the roof. Then came the suggestion that we should not only go onto the roof, but we should be drinking, too. So Catherine and I zipped up to the LCBO (in her dad’s tempermental Miata) and got stuff for four of us: wine for Cat, wine for John (although the vast majority got consumed by Cat), coolers for Mel, and Keith’s for me.

We climbed through the little opening that the window created and set up on the roof: a blanket was thrown down to ensure that our butts don’t freeze against the cold metal, another blanket was out there to ensure that we don’t freeze with the wind, and our drinks were placed along the ledge. It starts out with just Cat and me but, slowly, people saw us up there and decided to join us. By the time 10pm rolled around, we were nine strong with more bottles of wine to share.

It was probably the most audacious thing that I have done in quite some time. That is, until we were spotted by someone who told us that we shouldn’t be up there. Ahh leave it to JLee to knock the fun out of something. Our party IS RUINED (the Dons of 2004-2005 would know about this). I convince everyone that it’s probably best to go back inside.. being seen up there twice would probably not go over well.

So we end up bouncing between rooms for the rest of the night. Some people were almost literally bouncing between rooms; apparently it doesn’t take much wine to get people out of control. We had others join us inside and, before long, about half of the people there were sufficiently drunk. The room got really hot (stuffing eleven or so people in one of the St. Paul’s room would surely create an oven), so I elect to move back to John’s room. Eventually, the survivors ended up going there too. We all went for the matresses and talked for a bit. A couple people went out and came back, others fell asleep (I was one of them). I get woken up by John tugging at my arm at 12:59am.

Crap! RideSafe leaves soon! I tell John that I’m going to try and make it, but that he shouldn’t be too surprised if I came back. So we got the sleeping bag out, just in case. I get my stuff together and scurry to the SLC. Yes! They’re still there. I sign up and, two minutes later, I’m off to home.

As I’m writing this now, I’m making a comparison like this: friends are to life as tennis balls are to recess. Crude, yes, but I think you can see it, too. Friends are so central to life… they are my life (almost). I wouldn’t know what to do without them. Thank God for friends!!

One thing that Catherine said to me last night was the she was really sad to see her friends leave St. Paul’s all at once. I explained my position to her.. that is, that I am weaning myself off so, eventually, when I do need to leave once and for all, it won’t be so hard. I think that’s true for others, too, and she understood that. When I’m thinking about it now, though, I’m seeing that what I’m doing is fairly selfish. I shouldn’t stay away from St. Paul’s because I am now liberated from its grip and should exercise my independence; instead, I should want to be there as long as some of my good friends are there.

If I really appreciate my friends, then I should make an effort to keep in touch with them and spend time with them, regardless of where they are. This extends beyond my friends at St. Paul’s, but to all of them.

It’s times like these when I’m really thankful for my obscenely high tolerance for alcohol. Had this not been the case, I probably wouldn’t have had made this new level of commitment and, well, that could have spelled doom for some of my friendships. Everyone is surprised that this short Asian man (“Little Man Chan”, as Jasmine likes to tease.. grrr) could likely outlast them. Thank goodness I don’t drink to get drunk!

I think that I’ve said enough for now… I’ve been writing for about half an hour now (on and off). Thanks, Cat, for calling me on this, and to everyone who was there for a good time. I didn’t think that I would have came away with this sort of outlook considering it was a drunkfest for a lot of people. I guess it goes to show you that my brain is very weird. Oh what a night!

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