Extra Early Breakfast

The scene was the TV room in Ewing Hall. Rol, Gary, perhaps Rich and I were playing cards. Our resident ex-Marine Viet Nam vet was watching the truly bad Green Berets, shushing us whenever we got too loud.

I started to pack it in around 12:30, slightly on the early side for me, because I needed to study in the morning. Gary announced that he was going to get up early to go to breakfast and study, too. I asked Gary to wake me when he got up and I'd go to breakfast with him. With that, I bade them all adieu and went to bed.

The next thing I knew, I heard Gary telling me that it was time to get up. I remarked that I felt like I had only slept an hour. At that point I heard Rol, my roommate, rooting around in his closet. I usually wake up pretty quickly but I was having real problems this particular morning. I stumbled down to the bathroom, splashed some water on my face and stumbled back to the room, still trying to shake the cobwebs out of my head. I couldn't put it together but something just wasn't right. What was Rol doing up? He never got up early. And what was he doing in that closet for so long? Why was Gary smoking? He made a point of never smoking first thing in the morning.

We start walking down the hall and then down the stairs. Gary and Rol wanted me to take the underground route to the dining hall on our side but I knew that the dining room on the opposite side of the little quad was the only one open for breakfast. They tried to convince me otherwise but I was sharp witted on this one. I pushed open the outside door and it hit me -- it was pitch black outside. Those SOBs got me up in the middle of the night. I cursed them obligatorily and then burst out laughing.

It was really about 1:30 in the morning. Gary had seen me turn over in bed and softly said "time to get up". When I actually responded, he just went with it. Nothing was planned. Rol couldn't contain himself when I said that I felt like I had slept for only an hour. He buried his head in his closet and bit on a towel to keep from laughing aloud. And Gary having a cigarette at 1:30 AM was no big deal but I couldn't pick up that clue. But somehow, in my daze, I knew which cafeteria was supposed to be open.