Prank War - Diamonds and Pearls

I'm not sure what started it. I'm doing the math, and it's crazy to think that this all happened about 25 years ago. I guess that explains why some of the details are fuzzy. My school was still Ambassador College (it became Ambassador University while I was there after we became accredited). There was a group of us from New York, Maryland, Florida, Kansas/Missouri, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois who became good friends. This was long before smartphones and Netflix, and we had to make our own fun.

As I write this, I'm remembering the night we were chased down by the president of the college. The school was small, and students were often invited over to professors' houses on Faculty Row near the lake for dinner, games, etc.. I think it was a Saturday night. We were all walking back to our dorms, and we had to get back before curfew. I remember the walk back being fun - talking and laughing loud, walking across the airstrip (yep - there was an airstrip). Someone must've brought up who was faster, and I knew Trisha was fast. I forget who she raced that night, but I think she won, and we were cheering . . . and then Dr. Ward emerged from the darkness. Apparently, he had been chasing us since we left Faculty Row, and he caught up to us, all sweaty and breathless in his robe . . . He told us that we needed to be quieter, and then headed back to his house. I think we must have belly laughed all the way back to our dorms.

The prank war, though . . . I think it started with someone (maybe me?) putting a bunch of salt in Amman's drink during one of our meals. Maybe after that is when he wrote, "Watch Yourself" in shaving cream on Tamika's windshield. I admit that the next escalation was a bit much. Michelle, Tamika and I invited Spencer and Amman to eat dinner at Oxford Street . . . but what they didn't know was that we had arranged with the staff that the ladies would all leave the restaurant, making the fellas think that we had abandoned them there without paying . . . but we were just sitting in the car in the parking lot, laughing. We came back in and paid for the food, and we absolutely were not aware of how mad Spencer was about the whole thing. We parked in the Winn Dixie parking lot on the way back to school just to laugh more . . . and by the time we got back to the campus, Spencer, um . . . left the car while it was still in motion just to get away from us. I'll leave it at that.

Not long after that, our friend Ray came to visit from Maryland. Michelle LOVED Prince, and had
recently purchased his Diamonds and Pearls CD.  Ray asked to borrow it, but when he returned, he told her that she should listen to it because something may have happened to the CD. When she put it in the CD player, there was no music. Just a weird skipping noise. When she looked at the back of the CD, all the fellas had scratched their signatures and funny statements into the back of the CD. She was LIVID!!! She borrowed Tamika's car, and we drove over to Booth City where the guys lived.

Booth City - Photo cred: Lillian Knutson

Side note: I don't even know how this was legal, but while there were some guys who lived in old school dorms (only girls lived in the newest dorms - Azalea, Bluebonnet, Camellia, Daisy, and Edelweiss), the rest of the guys lived in Booth City which was basically rows and rows of glorified sheds with bunk beds.

Girls were only allowed in Booth City lounge, so the fact
that we drove up into Booth City itself was significant. I do remember arriving in Booth City creating a cloud of dust behind us because of how fast Michelle was driving. I remember her car door slamming like a shotgun blast when she got out and yelled, "Was it you? Was it you? Was it you? Which one of yall @#$%^ wrote on the back of my CD?" The fellas laughed, and laughed, and I remember standing there thinking that there was about to be a problem . . . until Ray pulled out an intact Diamonds and Pearls CD. The damaged CD was purchased and destroyed for pure laughs, and her CD remained unharmed. They got us good! Definitely the best prank to this day.

After the Diamonds and Pearls prank. LOL!

The last prank involved us creeping into Booth City and writing something in shaving cream on the concrete in front of one of the guys' booths . . . I was definitely the one who did the writing. It's not always hot in Texas, and during a cold snap, the shaving cream froze, leaving the words permanently etched into the concrete, and Michelle, Tamika and I got called in by the administration. We were confronted for coming into Booth City, and damaging property . . . but we didn't believe it. We sat there all belligerent, rolling our eyes, telling the Dean that we knew that the fellas had him in on the prank, and all like, "Yeah . . . okay. Whateva." Tamika lived in Georgia, but she was from New York like me and Michelle, and we definitely had attitude for days. I'm not sure what ended up happening . . . but it became clear that the Dean was not, in fact, in on the prank, and the prank war ended there.

Ambassador University doesn't exist anymore. The campus is now owned by the International ALERT Academy where first responders are trained. Before the campus was sold years ago, Dishon and I visited and got to see more of the campus than I ever saw when I was there. It was completely empty and surreal. Since graduating, I have discovered that a whole other world existed on that campus than I was aware of at the time. It's quite fascinating and definitely book-worthy. I guess that's what happens when you get a bunch of young adults together, make them sign a Code of Conduct, try to put a chokehold on their choices (suspension/probation for kissing, dismissal for sex), and create a loveless image of God where you are taught to keep His displeasure at bay by behaving a certain way. Heavy monitoring creates a divergent world where a dry campus becomes let's meet at the cemetery to drink, and be in by 11 becomes meet me on the roof of the library.  But I digress . . .

There were definitely some difficult times at school. There are challenges at all schools, but ours were unique because the denomination that sponsored the school transitioned from cult to mainstream Christianity while we were there in 1994. A lot of people left after that for different reasons - students, faculty, pastors . . . It was pretty devastating. But I remember the fun and laughter, too. Each class hosted a dance for the rest of the school every year, and the memories of the Freshman, Sophomore and Senior Banquets and Barn Dance . . . Operation Philia where the male and female students of color took turns honoring each other every year . . . those are good memories, and I'll keep that college fun in mind as I create the narrative for my characters in the novel.