The other night, some of my friends and I were reflecting back on our days at Xavier University when we were still able to be on campus. As seniors, this semester has been bitter-sweet, especially with the hit of COVID-19, which has shut down all of our in-person classes for the rest of the year. The topic of our conversation turned to something rather interesting though: What was the weirdest thing that happened to you at college?
Now college is a weird time where students explore who they are, who they want to be, so it’s filled with change, growth and occasionally weird moments. However, the weirdest moments seem to be some of the most treasured memories that we all carry. Here’s the weirdest thing that happened to me in college.
So, it was my freshman year of college. It was the end of the semester, and I had been invited to go to a military ball with one of my close friends. She’s in ROTC and I’m not at all– not qualified at all, and she’d asked me to be her date several months in advance. And so I put on my prom dress from junior year of high school and I was like, “Yes, ready for a night out on the town.”
And so I went with her. It was really nice, they had really good food. All the people were super, super nice. So we walk into the ballroom in the Cintas Center, which is like our basketball stadium. Everyone’s really fancy and everything.
Remember we’re freshmen, so we got delegated to like the back corner, and I sat down and started reading the program. Because honestly? It had the menu in it, and I just wanted to know what there was to eat. But also it had like everyone who was speaking and everything like that, too. And I just remember this guy coming over to me kind of sketchy, not like sketchy in a criminal way or anything, like we’re sitting in a ballroom, like it’s no it’s not sketchy. But like he came over to me like really sketchy and was like “This — that’s not your program. This is your program.” So he handed me this program with like a bunch of x’s on it.
And I just remember saying to my date, “If I have to, like, I don’t want to go do anything like if I have to go up and like, accept or like do anything like it’s gonna be you. Like I’m gonna hand this to you and be like– ‘It was her it was hers the whole time!’”
And she was like “That’s fine”, and what the funny part about that was that she had like a broken ankle or — I don’t know it may have been sprained, but she was on crutches. But I did not care, I was like “You’re gonna do anything that this makes me do.”
And so we go through dinner and it’s nice, it’s fine. The speeches were fine, I mean I don’t really remember the speeches. But there were several and they were quite long. And so we get to the end of the evening, and the Colonel, he was leaving that year. I guess they rotated out? But he was a really nice guy. I actually did know him because I took a self-defense class with him for eight hours in the fall, and it was a lot of fun– but like God it was awful. And he’s standing up there and he’s like making his speech, it’s really nice and he loved them. And then finally, at the end of his speech, he’s like, “So, who has the program with the x’s on it?” and I all, I’m thinking is, “No, no, no, no no no no no.”
And I’m like “Me,” and I raised my hand, and he’s like “Come on up here,” like super into it and I’m like “Oh god okay.” And I get up and like, mind you, I’m in pretty high heels and I’m walking to the stage, and he’s standing behind a podium because he’s got his hand under the podium.
All of a sudden he’s like, “You are now the proud owner of this!” and he pulls a sword out from under the podium and takes it out of its sheath, just thrusting it into the air. Now there’s me, I stopped dead in the middle of walking from the back corner to the front stage like, “What? What is happening? Is…that’s a sword.”
And he’s like, “Come on. Come here.” I just remember making eye contact with the only other person I knew at the entire ceremony, who was also a member of Her Campus at the time. I’m just looking at her and being like, “What the hell is happening?”
And she was like, “I don’t know, man. Get up there.” I just remember getting on the stage and him being like “Congratulations!” Then there was me, being like, “What’s happening”
So, I take the sword back to my seat and all these ROTC people are looking at me like, so jealous because of this sword. And I sit back down at my table, and I’m literally like “What just happened?” And so the night goes on.
I just remember at the end of the night I went to find him again because I didn’t think it was real, like I didn’t think he was serious. I just remember walking over to him being like “So do you need this back?”
And he was like “No, it’s yours, keep it like I’m so happy you got it.” I guess he’d remembered me from that eight-hour self-defense class.
And I was just like, “What am I gonna do with this? I’m a freshman at college and we’re not allowed to have weapons in our dorms.” And I just remember all the guys like in ROTC coming over and being like, “Can we see it?” And my date being like “Don’t let anyone touch it, they’re going to try and take it from you.”
I realized later it’s a really nice sword. I realized, way later, that I would theoretically now be a certain rank in the army, because the Colonel gave it to me, which is why he didn’t give it to any of the ROTC people. Why he decided to have a sword made and given it to someone in the first place, I don’t know. But, yeah, I’m an imaginary rank in the army –but I forgot which one.
I just remember going back to the dorms later that night, my ex-boyfriend was in town to visit me for that weekend. He was fine with me going and everything I told him like, “I’m going to this thing, like, I already said yes and this was way before you said you were coming into town.”
He was like, “No, no it’ll be fine. Go, like you’ll have a good time.” I remember walking in and putting it down and him being like, “What is that?”
And I looked at the sword and I looked at him and I’m like, “Yeah, I won a sword.
And that was the weirdest thing that ever happened to me in college.