Thanksgiving came early.

When I read through the fall semester Resident Director duty list I was far more disappointed to discover I would be on call for Halloween than for Thanksgiving.... Not just because I love Halloween; I was one of those kids that planned and created my costume a month in advance. Halloween is also top on the list of favorite holidays to use an excuse for copious drinking.

A colleague was kind enough to cover Saturday night so I could join my friend's bar crawl. He managed to get through the entire night with no calls.

Friday night I was not so lucky. This is the run down of those torrential 24 hours. Resident Advisors (RA) call the Resident Director (RD) to check in at 5PM. That is where this day began.

5:35PM Call from the RA. Students are smoking in front of their residence. "Richel, what is so wrong with smoking outside, on the sidewalk..." you may be wondering. It is not the when or the where that are wrong, it is the what they were smoking..... Oy vey! The issue was resolved quickly and compliantly. I head home with a sense of dread for the hours to come.

1:15AM Crawled into bed with serious hesitation. Only one call? Not possible on

a holiday weekend!

1:30AM I should have listened to my instincts... Call from both RAs. Intoxicated students that are sick and sad. Luckily, no one had alcohol poisoning; it's nothing a good night's sleep and some advil in the morning won't cure. The RAs still haven't finished their rounds so I am convinced the night is far from over. Go home and re-read The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

2:30AM Text from an RA. Their rounds were over so I climbed back into my bed with Tigre a

lready sound asleep.

2:45AM Call from Campus Patrol. (CP) There was water leaking into the basement of my building. They couldn't discover where the leak came from so they had to turn all the water off. My job? Make posters and signs to inform students. At 2:45 in the morning...

3:00AM Finally crawled back into my bed. Tigre's still dead asleep and his presence has warmed the foot of my bed.

9:30AM Another call from Campus Patrol. There is a chicken in one of the lounges. Not the raw, food form of chicken (which I've already had to deal with once... I'll have to post that story sometime soon) but a live chicken. Am I dreaming? I do that after adrenaline filled nights.... NO. There is actually real bird hanging out in a box in one of the hall's lounge.

Upon arriving to the scene of the bird I find a note on top of the creature's box. According to said note the bird has a name, Shina, and she misses her home. In the name of all things good how did a live bird find its way into a residence hall?! And better, what in goodness gracious do I do with a chicken?

The CP Officer met us at the lounge with a net in tow. The plan was to catch the chicken and put him in the college's organic garden chicken coop. I carefully, and quite fearfully, lifted the top off of Shina's box but what is this?! NOT A CHICKEN! The bird appears to be a turkey. A turkey that could feed a family of 4 for Thanksgiving. Scratch the chicken coop idea.

• First phone call - Animal Services. Closed on Saturdays and Sundays.
• Second phone call - Police Dispatch. They do not deal with issues of 'wild game'.
• Third phone call - Highway Patrol Dispatch. Dispatcher informed a Wild Game Officer of our problem and gave him my phone number.
• Fourth phone call - Call from Officer Larson and to quote him "I am driving down I15 to deal with a goose that is harassing people but as soon as I take care of him I will be down to help with your turkey."

The capture and removal of Shina was fairly uneventful. We learned from Officer Larson that she is not a chicken or a turkey: she is a mix of the two. The RA and I have decided to call her Shina the Turcken.Twenty minutes later Officer Larson, who is a former BYU Resident Advisor, is on campus to capture Shina and take her back to safety.

11:30PM Student Activities Chairs were setting up for the Kids' Club event so I stopped in to check it out.

11:33PM Call from RA, again. Student was injured in a long boarding accident. I walked back to the residence hall previously known for housing a turcken to check on the skater. The poor student feel off his skateboard in order to

prevent getting hit by a car and has cuts and scrapes all over. The clincher: a hole as big as a quarter and deep as 3 stacked nickels on his elbow. Me "Yes, daring student, you need to get cleaned up by professionals. Band-Aids and Neosporin will not suffice!"

12:00PM Home again, finally. It was a challenge to put on my fun face for the trick or treaters that came around that afternoon but it was brief and I was just happy to be home!

1:00PM I really, really needed a shower. Sick students, live birds and skateboard injuries (Oh my!) left me feeling gross. Oh wait... they turned the water off! I was able to borrow a colleague's shower, finish making my Flo costume and clean my apartment just in time for friends to meet up for our bar crawl fun at 5:00PM

7:30PM Time my on-call duties ended, at least until Sunday morning. Headed off to sell some car insurance... have some Halloween fun of my own!

Sunday was uneventful. A lazy, lovely fall Sunday with no duty calls.

I turned in the duty key ring today and I've never felt such a weight lifted :)

R.