Security Gaurd

Dance camp.  Four days and three nights of learning and performing dances.  We spent almost every spare moment practicing.  I went over motions in my head as I fell asleep.  I timed my life in eight counts.  I had a perpetual soundtrack of “Latin Mix” and “Come on Feel the Noise” stuck in my head.  This was ninety percent of our time at camp, but it was really the free moments that I remember most.  Especially the time that we almost got caught by a security guard.

The whole fiasco happened in under two hours, but it felt like days.  It was the second night of camp, at about 11:00 at night.  We were all sitting in Emma and Molly's room talking.  Even though we were all supposed to be in our own suites, Abby was in our room.  Everything was great until "Richard" showed up.  

I'm sure you're wondering what I'm talking about, so let me explain. Earlier that morning, Molly and Jenna had met a person on a bike.  Long story, short; they named him Richard and it became this big joke. 

That's why, when at approximately 11:00 at night, a man passed, most of the people in the room started shouting out at him.

“Hi, Richard,” Emma screamed.  

“DUCK FACE,” Abby yelled out the window.

We were all laughing and joking around.  

Then, the man shined a flashlight up in to our window.  It was a security guard. 

The next few minutes were all a blur.  Somehow, none of us panicked.  We all ducked down, so he didn't see us.  Someone turned off the lights.  Molly closed the curtains.  Then, the shock wore off.  I remember everyone's reactions.  Emma started hyperventilating and shaking.  Molly was so scared that we'd get caught, she was almost in tears.  Jenna was worried that he would come up to our dorm.  Abby was afraid that she would get in trouble for being in our room after curfew.  I was scared to death, but I tried to stay as calm as possible.  I knew that it would be worse if I started freaking out too.  

This is when it started to feel like time was dragging out as long as possible.  The seconds hesitated to pass.  The minutes ticked by as sluggishly as possible.  The clock seemed to slow to a stop.  We were waiting for something to happen.  I think we all knew it was coming, but when it did our hearts skipped a beat.  Someone was knocking on our door.  

Everyone panicked, except for me.  Abby hid in a closet, Emma and Molly pretended to be sleeping, Jenna crawled under the bed.  All the lights were still off.  On my way to the door, I tripped over a suitcase.  Only later I realized how much it had hurt, but then I was completely numb.  I tip toed to the peep hole.  Outside, stood the security guard.  All I did was watched and waited.  I kept thinking "Maybe if  I don't do anything, he’ll leave."  That's when he sighed and pulled out his keys.  I realized that I had to do something.  With no other option, I opened the door.

Luckily, someone had turned on the lights.  He stepped in to the hallway.  I tried to look and sound as tired as possible, like we had actually been trying to sleep.   I offered the lame excuse of me tripping over a suitcase explaining why it had took me so long to get to the door.  That was the end of any small talk.  He said "We had some reports about girls screaming out the windows, and this could have been one of the suites."  At this point I had to make a split second decision: get caught for breaking the dorm rules, or lie.  Neither were good options.  I'd love to say that I took the high road and told the truth, but I didn't.  I just put on a straight face and said the first thing that popped in to my mind.  "Oh, that wasn't us, we were just talking and eating chips."  By now he had walked to the doorway of Emma and Molly’s room.  

Thankfully, he didn't come in.  He was most likely discouraged by the empty pints of ice cream, gummy worms on the desks, and the rainbow of spandex and sports bras littering the floor.  He just looked in to their room and saw three of the other girls.  They were trying to look tired, but were all holding their breaths.  The security guard seemed to believe our story, but he still seemed a little suspicious.  "Was there anyone else in your room in the past ten minutes?" he asked.  "No," I replied as casually as possible.  This was all he needed to hear.  He said "Sorry to scare you ladies, you look fine to me.”  We all rushed to reply “Oh, it’s fine,” before he left. 

The second our door slammed closed, we finally let out our breaths.  Abby waited a few seconds, then went back to her own room before the guard interrogated them too. 

Emma was verging on a nervous breakdown and was almost in tears.  We were all still scared, but we realized that the hardest part was over.  Now our biggest concern was that someone would figure out that it was us screaming and we would get in trouble.  

When I look back on that incident, I realize that it all could have been avoided by following the rules.  If we had gone to bed on time, obeyed curfew, not screamed out the windows, and even not talked to that bicyclist, there would never have been a problem.  That would have been great, but then there would be no story.  Even though I don’t believe it was right to scream out the windows and lie to the security  guard, it definitely made that night a lot more interesting.   So the morale of this story is not “don’t lie to a security guard at dance camp.”  It’s not even that you should follow one of the billion and one other rules we broke.  The real morale of this story is don’t get caught lying to a security guard because you were screaming out the windows.  That would just ruin the end of the story.