The Cheesecake Situation

Back in my Freshman year of college I hung out with two main people. One of which was the date that I took the my school's formal in the story "Never Try to Make a Cop Laugh". We were the best of friends and still to this day talk every now and then. One of our soirees into the field of battle against the oppressive establishment, which at the time we thought was the school (We were young, 'twas a mistake.), involved cheesecake and a dumpster.

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"The Cheesecake Situation"

One brisk, spring, evening myself, Formal Date, and Music Star were all hanging out in the girl's dormitory lobby. We were quite bored, as we usually were during those first two semesters of school (studying rarely happened unless it was finals week back then). As we sat there, pondering our lives away and playing ping pong without the table, we heard that a special reception was being held for some faculty members who were retiring. My friends and I knew these faculty members so we decided to see what the event was about.

After about ten minutes of weighing the pros and cons of this idea we decided to head down to the student lounge. Apparently, we got there to late (according to our wonderful and keen observational skills). Oddly enough, nobody had cleaned up. Instead of a bunch of chairs and dirty plates there were two and a half cheesecakes on beautiful crystal stands, two coffee urns, two or so bowls of chocolate sauce, and some beautiful flatware laid out. Assuming that the party had ended, we decided that it wouldn't hurt if we helped ourselves to one slice of cake. After eating a slice each we though, "Eh, the party's over. One more slice can't hurt.". Cutting into the second cheesecake we begin to hear movement upstairs. Lo and behold, the party hadn't ended, it had yet to start. Yep, we were now indulging on two elderly people's goodbye party, before they could.

In utter shock we looked at each other. Then, we looked at the cake we already had on the plates. Two of us start towards the door, however, one of my friends hangs back. We both look back at her (I'm not revealing who it was as a just in case) and without missing a beat, she picks up the entire cheesecake, glass stand, and stainless steal cake knife, and begins to run towards us and the open door. Knowing that we couldn't discuss this inside, what with the entire retirement party coming down the elevator and all, we all practically fly outside with the stolen merchandise.

Once we turn the corner we begin to examine the situation and weigh out the new series of pros and cons:

Pros:

• We have a whole cheesecake
• We have a nice stand and serving knife

Cons:

• We stole from elderly people
• Elderly people who are still technically employed by our university
• A university that has a police force
• A police force that patrols the campus every fifteen or so minutes

After discussing these, and other, fine ethical and moral points we come to a conclusion: We can't return the goods. However, we can't return them to the girls' dormitory as is. Questions would be asked. Looking about for a means to transport the cheesecake and accessories we stumble upon a dumpster. In this dumpster, towards the bottom, we discover some cardboard boxes that had been thrown out.

Yeah, you can see where this is going.

Five minutes later we return to the dorm with a soggy box filled with cake and a crystal cake stand. Our faces were so stern that people were wondering what had happened anyways. We spoke to nobody and as soon as the cake was safe we all went our separate ways for the evening.

Now that was a night.
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Epilogue:

After that night I would frequently ask the friend who stored the cheesecake whatever became of the serving platter and knife. I mean, they were quite nice. She would never tell me, however, I did notice that her car never went without a full tank of gas for the rest of the semester...