“It’s about as dead in here as a possum on a freeway.”
Fall Break is a somewhat random break in the middle of October, usually falling somewhere between Homecoming and Parents’ Weekend. It’s not long enough to close the residence halls for it (since it’s just a three-day weekend), and so Potomac Hall remained open for Fall Break, the only major break that this happens. Nonetheless, though, everyone goes home for Fall Break, leaving maybe three or four residents on each floor of the building. So in a building like Potomac that houses 418 people, we’re reduced to approximately 40 people (give or take) and three RAs. The place has somewhat of an eerie quality to it, even worse than that day classes were cancelled at 11:00 due to snow, and everyone just fled Zane Showker. On snow days, the residence halls are a hotbed of activity. Not for this weekend. I sat duty on the Saturday of Fall Break, and made the comment to myself, as I was coming up with ways to say how dead it was in the building, “It’s about as dead in here as a possum on a freeway.” And for those of you who’ve seen roadkill, that’s pretty darn dead. The only real highlight of the weekend was dragging my big leather office chair from my room down to the office, since I am convinced the chair that’s in the hall office has a death warrant out on me, intent on giving me a neck injury or a back injury by hurling me backwards out of the chair onto the floor. Still, as the vast majority of Potomac Hall headed up or down the freeway, the place they left behind became as dead as a possum, well… on a freeway.
Date posted: October 21, 2001