Where's Your Sweater?

Don't ever let me get bored.

My creative (insane?) brain absolutely hates being bored, and will invent things just to stay active. Normally, I can channel these impulses into research for a jewelry or craft project, but when I'm trapped....

Picture a small liberal arts college in the very late 80's. We'd just gotten back to the dorms, and the poor froshes were finishing up their week of orientation as us older, more mature - excuse me.....(runs into another room, laughs hysterically for a few minutes, throws cold water on face, returns) - where was I? Oh, yes, we were mature and sophisticated and not at all acting like the childish 17-year-olds we truly were...

(runs off again to cackle for no reason whatsoever)

Right. So, sitting in the common room, bored out of my mind, dorm stuff already put away, boyfriend not there yet, friends also putting stuff away, nothing good on the TV at that time of afternoon, staring at the people puttering back and forth with gobs of stuff that was questionable as to whether or not it would be useful for the next three months but which was essential when we were packing to leave home. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And my friend Kevin walked by with another load of sweaters.

And a germ of an idea was born.

See, Kevin was a good friend, we'd met that first day at our own orientation a year ago. About ten of us formed a friend clump, and we had a lot of the required classes together. Studied together, ate together, hung out together. We knew each other's quirks and habits and families and likes and dislikes.

And Kevin was definitely a clothes horse. He liked looking neat and put together for classes. And also, being an R.A. this year, was serious and straight-laced and wanted to project an air of not taking crap, so he'd be the benevolent dictator that his floor of boys-thinking-they-were-men could be.

He'd also claimed last semester that no one could break into his room. Big mistake, to say that in front of me, who'd learned to break into cars and houses just for the fun of it. No, I never stole anything, I just wanted the skill of being a lockpicker. For a goody-two-shoes, I had some weird skills.

By the next day, talking with most of the rest of our mutual friend group, we Had a Plan.

I waited till the play practice was well under way. We were putting on Moliere's "Tartuffe," and you could tell who was in the play because we all spoke in rhyming couplets for two whole freaking months. Kevin's roommate, Bob, was deep in the play. I had a few lines at the end as a police officer, so I could skip most of the practice to take a night course. The classroom was on the second floor, practice on the ground floor, easy enough to trundle down and join the end of practice for my part.

Except that one night....

The Night We Put the Plan in Action was a Tuesday. When we got our half-hour break for the three-hour class, I ran down the back stairs towards the rehearsal room. There lay Bob's coat - with his dorm key in the pocket. Swoosh, nab, and I was out the door like a shot and hoofing it across the campus on the back path. Gotta love small liberal arts colleges.

Once over at our twinned dorms, I scooted into my own room. There lay a stack of plastic grocery sacks, lovingly saved over the course of a month and a half or so. Scooped up, stuffed in my winter jacket, and I ran from the girls' dorm through the common room - where the R.A.'s were having a group meeting, I made sure to wave to Kevin as I passed - and over to the boys' dorm since dorms were open that night and girls could visit boys' floors and vice versa (yes, we had that, it was a thing). Into the room of my twin-in-crime, Jesse, where we staged the setup.

I dropped my coat and bags. Though others had offered, I chose to be the only one who actually did the breaking-in; if there was blowback, I wanted it all on me. Pilfered key out, I scooted right across the hall and opened the door. There, on tidy shelves, were neat stacks of Kevin's sweaters. Clean, laundered, pristine in their arrangement.

Scoop, dump, scoop, dump, scoop, dump! I grabbed them all in batches and ran them across the hall to Jesse's room, where he stuffed a sweater in each bag as soon as it appeared. I even dug into his dirty laundry basket and snagged the two that were crumpled there.

By the time I locked the room and scooted back across the hall, all the sweaters were separated into their individual bags and ready to go. I grabbed half, Jesse grabbed the other half, and back over to the girls' side with our delightful burden. We both made sure to say hi to Kevin as we passed the meeting again. Didn't want to be rude, did we? And it was hard to wave with all those bags on our arms.

All our friends had assembled in my room, right on schedule. Arms reached out to take a bag each, and within seconds they'd all vanished for the safety of their dorms across campus. I dropped mine on my bed, tossed my roomie hers, threw my coat back on, and pelted out of there by the back door to run across campus, return the key with no one the wiser, and run up to my class before the session started again. I made it with a minute to spare.

The next morning, we all dressed in Kevin's sweaters.

Eight o'clock was the hour for biology classes, so I was there grinning like that proverbial cat while taking notes. Not many people up that early in the morning, except us sadistic bio people. Nine o'clock classes were for the philosophy courses, and I happened to be taking Faith and Philosophy with Kevin in that time slot. So were four others wearing Kevin sweaters. We nodded and shared grins as we took seats.

Our prof was as quirky as they come, and I loved him for it. He knew his classes very well, and Kevin was always five minutes early. Except today. Five of us grinning as the clock ticked, and everyone else there, except Kevin. Everyone staring at the door, except for five, who very well knew why.

Even the prof was staring at the door. "This is unusual. I wondered what happened?"

Unable to resist, I said in as mild a tone as possible, "Maybe he couldn't find his sweaters."

The prof's laser gaze focused on me. No, he never missed a trick. "Explain."

So we did, the five of us, quickly, before Kevin could arrive. The class dissolved in giggles, and even the prof was delighted to be in on a campus joke. So as soon as Kevin slumped into class, five minutes late, uncombed, disheveled, unshaved, and wearing the rattiest dirtiest sweatshirt I have ever seen (I later learned it was in the bottom of the dirty laundry bin for a reason), looking every inch as un-Kevin as I could ever hope to see, the prof immediately demanded as soon as Kevin's foot broke the plane of the doorway: "Kevin, where's your sweater??"

Kevin stopped dead cold. His head snapped up, fixed on the prof's face, grinning. And, suddenly presciently knowing, his gaze flipped to me, who sat in the seat aside of him right inside the door. Immediately flicked down to my torso. Recognized the knitted pattern. Eyes then darted around the room, catching all the other sweaters he recognized and the other grinning faces to see the prank come to fruition. His eyes slid back to me. "YOU," he growled. He slumped in his seat.

I took notes for him, poor guy.

Kevin tried to run away afterward, but we planned this well. Ten o'clock on Wednesdays was Chapel services (small Christian liberal arts college), when we'd have "church light" services and they'd have guest speakers giving homilies / sermons / speeches. For those cringing, they were actually pretty good. Most everyone on campus came to them, because they were that good. Known speakers (C. Everett Koop and Bishop Tutu were two of them), good messages. (Except for the poor guy whose accent was a bit strange to our ears, and actually said "mawwiage" and "twue love." We had to slide out of our seats and giggle silently so as not to upset anyone, especially that poor speaker!)

So with the five of us following a scuttling Kevin out of the classroom, he was met with a Wall of Kevin Sweaters. Everyone in on the joke completely surrounded him, so he could say hi to his missing clothing. We sat around him in the auditorium seats, front and back and sides. By the end of chapel he wasn't mad any more, even stood still long enough to have a picture taken in a sea of Kevin Sweaters. I don't have a copy, but I'm sure it's out there somewhere.

Turns out, I was right to do the actual thieving alone. Kevin thought Bob was in on the plot, and was going to to something dastardly to him in return, but I immediately took all the blame. It's been over thirty years, so I'll say it now: yes, Kevin, Bob WAS in on it all along. He told me where the key was so I didn't waste time hunting, and gave me a wave as I took off to do the deed. No one knew that, till now.

We did return his sweaters the next day, freshly laundered. Kevin never did get even with me. I'm not quite sure why. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go lock my door now...