Fatal Fourway: Embarrassing back to college tales

Tara Hanneffy - Otwo Co-Editor
I have been known to be chilling at home, blissfully unaware that I’ve mixed up my shift times, only to get a call from work asking me where I am. Despite my past errors, I blindly believe that I’ve checked my timetable correctly, and disappoint myself every time. So, when I rocked up to a seminar in my second year, buoyed up by the timetable successes of my first year, I believed nothing was amiss. We’ve all been in the wrong place at the wrong time at one point. It happens to me too regularly to even be considered amusing. To make this whole situation worse, I was late to this seminar. It took a good ten, maybe fifteen minutes for me to realise that I definitely hadn’t signed up to this module, and that I was in the wrong class. I debated for quite a long time about whether I should just pretend I knew what I was doing, or if I should admit my stupidity (walking out wasn’t an option). I did the latter, was mortified when I discovered that my class was scheduled for an hour later than I originally thought. I spent the rest of the term hiding around the corner so the lecturer from the earlier class wouldn’t spot me.

Clara Brannigan - Otwo Co-Editor

You would think with age comes responsibility, but in second year I appeared to be aging backwards. When second year came around, I had a solid group of pals and had worked a decent summer job, so I had some money in my pocket. We weren't just going out, we were going out out. I knew the suss now, the real Black Monday go-ers went to Copper Face Jacks. I headed to a friends house for pre-drinks, people kept arriving - I remember thinking this is what a college party is. No one noticed the time - then there was a sudden panic that we’d missed the last bus. We Hailo’d some taxis and made a dash for Coppers. Eventually I had lost everyone bar one friend. We hobbled to Babylon after too much tequila, ordered our chicken burger meals and headed home. To my horror, when I woke up, I was still blind drunk. I threw on anything I could find and headed to my Sociology lecture in Theatre L. As the theatre became stuffier and stuffier, I began to feel ropier and ropier. With the taste of tequila still in my mouth, I dashed to Newman’s bathrooms, where I spent the next two hours hugging the toilet. I later discovered we’d left one of our friends out with no money and no phone - he had a long walk that night.

Dylan O’Neill - Deputy Editor
Mine is the tale of “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished”. It was was within the first weeks of semester one of first year. I was in digs at the time, which meant I had go home every weekend to work. One weekend, I was asked to pull a double shift on Sunday, because my coworker was sick, or on maternity leave, or getting married... I don’t know. I knew working a double would mean I’d miss the train back to Dublin and I’d have to wait for the 5:00 a.m. train on Monday, but I needed the money so I agreed. Monday morning came around and I decided I’d drop my bags off, before heading to my Molecular Biology lecture. I was not sleepy for long. When I turned the key in the lock of an empty house, I heard the three *beeps* that woke me up. A few seconds later, because my landlord hadn’t told me the code, the surrounding houses woke up too... not to mention the guards. I had a fun time explaining that to them.

Brían Donnelly - Editor

In October of 2015, during my second year, I found myself cycling home with a family friend who lived nearby. Despite my suspicions that he might try to sell me drugs, we pedalled idly beside each other, chatting for a while, before I attempted to make a turn on my route home. When my friend asked me where I thought I was going, I replied (to reassert my dominance), “home, you dweeb”.

What came next was nothing short of a cataclysmic shift in my perception of life, and of the world I believed I knew. This boy, at eighteen years old, barely more than a child, in a clear attempt to enfeeble me, told me that I was going the ‘wrong way home’.

For more than the entirety of first year, I had cycled a route from my familial home in Knocklyon, to leafy Dublin 4, which took over an hour. The jester who upended my peaceful existence cycled a route which took less than half that amount of time. A cursory glance at Google maps revealed that I had strictly adhered to a route so circuitous and unnecessary that I had almost never been on time for any of my tutorials, regardless of the time at which they were held. Say nothing.