Still no hot water. Ian, holding down the Phi Kappa Psi house, offered me the use of their shower facilities. On the brink of stankiness, I took him up on the offer. Bo let me use his car to get there. So far, so good. Right?

The Phi Psi house is on the south side of campus, which has a hill; there are dorms and fraternity houses both at bottom and at top. I didn't know where their house was, so I checked the bottom first. Walked around in the snow in my sandals, didn't find the house, got back in the car, drove to the top of the hill. Parked near the College Scholars house, walked around in the snow, found the house. No doorbell! And I hadn't taken Ian's phone number with me.

I looked through the window and saw a few phone numbers on the bulletin board. With a vague idea of the house's range of numbers, I started calling randomly selected numbers on the campus phone. Surprisingly, no answer. I looked for lights around the house and shouted “Ian!” at them. No answer. I walked back to the car, pulled around to the side of the house, and honked in an “S.O.S.” pattern. No answer.

I drove back to my house, looked up Ian's phone number in the campus directory, drove back to his house, called him up, and got in.

I saw at least six police cars during this process, including the one idling in the Phi Psi parking lot when I arrived the second time. I must have looked mighty suspicious in sandals, carrying bath materials, walking from building to building and not entering any of them.

Moral of the story: don't be a complete idiot.