war and peace

War and peace.
by anna marie smith and lee mimms.

So it was owen fitzpatrick's 21st bday. He was suffering from mononucleosis, so we threw him a gentle "family dinner", held at the "family dinner table" in RLO. [We like to make jokes about how this resembles the dinner table of a 60s sitcom.] For Owen’s 21st, we went ALL OUT – ribs and cheesecake. A 21st birthday that he would remember. Literally. Since he had mono, and alcohol was out of the menu. All Little hall counselors were present and accounted for.

As we were enjoying each other's fellowship and finishing up our meal, our boss's boss's boss (Patty Perillo) was sitting with us and chatting it up. (She's very nice and friendly.) She exited the scene, moving down the hall toward the RLO conference room/her office. Cary heard her calling very calmly, "Guys. Guys. Could you come here for a second?" Cary leisurely departed to see what she wanted… and then called down the hall "everyone come here, I think Patty needs help.” We sluggishly moved in the direction of Patty and Cary to witness the following scene unfold before us:

Patty stood calmly holding a bowl filled with flames, as Cary stood next to her with a look of mild bemusement on his face. We all watched and wondered what would be the best solution for this fiery predicament. Stephannie McKinney suggested that Patty put the bowl down, since it WAS on fire and all. Patty responded with “it’s sort of hot.” At this point, the flames from the bowl are spilling onto the carpet and table cloth (specifically flames of plastic plate, meaning it's a gooey situation of fire).

Abby suggested we get a fire extinguisher, but Patty calmly said – “no… it’ll be okay”.

We continued to watch the flames grow exponentially. Abby got the fire extinguisher anyway. No rush on it, though. Whilst dexterously wielding said handheld cylindrical pressure vessel, she proceeded to pull the needle out, clutched the handle, and performed the sweeping motion beaten into our brains during staff training. Patty, for reasons unapparent to us, stood silently with her left fist raised gloriously in the air. It was incredible.

The room, hall, floor, etc was filled with particles of smoke, dust, and powder chemicals of the fire extinguisher, so much that we could no longer see each other. [this is an exaggeration for effect. But seriously, it was intense. Plus, it smelled hella funny.]

We chortled as the area supervisor, police forces, dining services, emergency services, and other college officials came to handle the situation. Every time an authority figure entered the room, they would accusingly ask Patty “why do you let them [meaning us] get away with these things?” or “what did YALL do?” [glaring accusatorily] It was funny. And ironic. We proceeded to write 8 similar but different incident reports… it’s part of our job, man.

And that was the day that LITTLE saved Belk dormitory.