Just had a memory skip across the gray matter last night while I was hosing dirt and oil off a truck.
The time is the mid to late 90's (the date is not really that important). The place is Montgomery College, in the cafeteria. There's a performer singing cover tunes while playing a guitar, and the students are paying about as much attention to him as they do the college's radio station (little more than a glorified PA system that is run by students and piped into the cafeteria).
Suddenly, a door on the far side of the cafeteria bursts open. The students closest react, and a student comes charging into the cafeteria. As he makes his way through (jogging), the reaction from the first students spread. Minor reactions spread into a commotion, as students realize what they are witnessing.
The student jogging through the cafeteria wears a red bandanna, looking (facially, anyway) like a bandit from an old western, well-worn size 10 sneakers, and nothing else.
As he passes in front of the performer, who was singing "Tears in Heaven" by Eric Clapton, the performer pauses in his singing and playing for a second, taking in what has interrupted his "show". He blinks, shakes his head, and continues from where he paused his singing.
The streaker leaves the cafeteria through the Student Activities office, to his girlfriend's car, poised to make an escape. His friends laugh at what has just transpired, one nearly falling off his seat, and one friend, while not laughing as uproariously, nonetheless has a sadistic, self-satisfied grin on his face.
A short time later, the streaker's friends are let in on the secret, as the streaker returns, fully clothed, and is taken by campus police for questioning.
The streaker (to protect his identity, we'll call him Dan) was actually put up to his stunt. And I was the one who put him up to it. I wasn't the one who spurred activities like this. I simply wasn't the type to encourage behavior like this.
So I explained:
Shortly before the "done in a flash" event, Dan was sitting with his girlfriend, myself, and a couple of other friends, just hanging out in the Student Activities area. It had been observed that things were kinda dead in the cafeteria, and someone had made the suggestion to do something about it. This degenerated into Dan saying that he would streak the cafeteria, if he was paid for it.
My brain started hatching a plan.
Dan and I had been friends. We still were, as of this event (and, truth be told, after it), friends, but not quite as good of friends as we had been. He had done something. It was important enough to alter our friendship, but not important enough to leave the impression on me so that I would remember it now.
Anyway, Dan also owed me 5 bucks.
In a moment of sadism, I offered him the opportunity to wipe out that minor debt (and a bag of Doritos) if he would streak the cafeteria. He agreed, and I knew that he would want to take credit for it (much like a criminal leaving taunting clues for a cop). I decided to encourage him to do something that he would bury himself for because he had committed some minor wrong to me, and, let's be honest, I did it for poops and giggles.
And damn it all if Dan didn't perform almost exactly as expected. To his credit, he didn't rat me out, convincing the campus police he decided to do it on his own.
If it had been a little colder, it would have been a little more satisfying, but revenge for whatever the wrong was was served that day, and all it cost me was a bag of Doritos (the money had already been more or less written off by me).
And I and my friends learned what a truly sadistic, twisted individual I can be.
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