<p>Some background first. For freshman year I went to RPI and lived in BARH (Burdett Avenue Residence Hall, or, alternatively, Bad A** Residence Hall). The rooms there are mostly doubles and each double shares a bathroom with the one next door. Because of this arrangement, the bathrooms there are unique in a way I’ve seen nowhere else: they only lock from the outside, so that the people in the neighboring double can’t come into your room while you’re out.</p>
<p>One frosty morning I overslept and woke with only ten minutes before a physics exam. It takes about ten minutes to run from BARH to the DCC, so I snapped to, grabbed all of my stuff, and dashed out the door. As I was closing it I remembered that my room mate often forgets to lock the bathroom door. I doubled back and sure enough, it was unlocked. So, being the responsible one, I locked it.</p>
<p>Maybe you suspect where this is going already. Five hours later, I returned from a long day of classes and two exams. The first thing I heard when I entered my room was a piteous moan coming from the bathroom. “Let me ouuuut.” My poor room mate had spent five hours locked in there drinking out of the sink and taking showers to entertain himself, whatever that means. He had an exam that day, too, which he missed. I wrote a heartfelt email to his professor explaining the situation and she thought it was hilarious (“and if a lie at least it made me laugh”) and agreed to let him take the exam the next day.</p>
<p>He would hardly talk to me for the rest of the week and ever since I was afraid I would one day find myself locked in the bathroom, but it never happened. It’s one of those things we laugh about now.</p>