About fifteen minutes after that, the same suite opens its door, and one of the residents lets out a monkey call. At this very point, I'm thinking, "oh, shit." We knew it was coming, and now it was on. "It" was a mass water balloon attack. Everybody was firing on our position. Fortunately, we managed to make it back into my suite. There were a few other sporadic water balloon attacks throughout the rest of the night as well. At another point, some of the younger band members stole Mike's chair. Well, Sean Hackett repossessed it, and got a big thing of cheese balls to boot. I didn't get to sleep until about 4:00 Thursday.
Then Thursday night was interesting as well. First there was massive water balloon throwing right after dinner. Nobody, not even we chaperones, were safe. Actually, we were probably the most vulnerable of all. Before curfew and lights out (translation: lockdown), there was dancing and a DJ at the "Rat". Apparently some members of the Tigerettes (our dance team) decided to appear in Saran Wrap (covering their clothes). That was screwed up. Then when we finally reached night, it was a bit weird. Not as weird as Wednesday night, but screwed up. Just after curfew (22:30) one of the freshmen came out with a trombone - dressed only in boxers, which were rolled way up to look like a diaper. He's walking around tooting his horn, looking silly. Then he mooned us. None of us were really in the mood to go over there and take him down. A few minutes later, he comes back out again, dressed the same way, this time with a set of quads. At some point, he lost the quads and got himself duct taped to a tree. After freeing himself and returning to his room, all the adults made their way up. And after some consultation, his freedom privileges were revoked for tonight. Around 23:15, I start hearing some beeping. And I know it's my megaphone, which has been missing for a day and a half. It didn't take long to pinpoint the suite that it was in - suite 512, the same one responsible for the stripper and the water balloons the night before. But none of the chaperones could get it back. Finally, Jon Labbe, who is the only one of the chaperones that didn't go to my high school, goes in there and emerges two minutes later with my megaphone.
Then the band members start playing with the marching band-supplied megaphones. So Labbe goes over and gets one of the two of those. And we went back and forth with the kids, until they finally gave up. That wasn't until about 2:30 though.
Tonight promises to be the worst night of all. Being the last night, the male bandies, especially the seniors, will be pulling out all the stops to get us angry. I'll fine another report soon, most likely on my return to Ithaca on Sunday. I think I can take solace in the fact that Cornell's band camp next week will not be nearly as stressful as this one is...