A Red Cape, a Betrayal and a Kidnapped Carebear

With the College Leaders Program starting up again in just over a week, I've been reflecting a lot lately on what I've learned in the past two years through this program. A few key lessons come to mind:

1) Don't let the students see any of your personal belongings.
2) Don't trust the students with a key to your room.
3) Don't drink caesar dressing (though that's a story for another post)

So for those of you who don't know, the College Leaders Program is essentially government camp (or "nerd camp" as the '04 class liked to call it). Students spend a month here at UVA learning about government and politics in Virginia. As a graduate myself, I can really only say so much, but I think you get the idea.

Well, the 2004 class was a special group. They were my first class to work with, and the only class that I lived in the dorms with, which gives them special noteriety. At the very beginning of this program, one of the students fell on the stairs and, as it later turned out, broke her ankle. In the original scheme of things, I was living on the ground floor of the apartment building and the students up above. With a broken ankle however, this student clearly needed to be moved to the ground floor.

To make this easier, we had the whole program help switch our two apartments.

It's worth taking an aside here to point out that this was right after college, and my parents had moved across the country, meaning that I was basically living out of my car. So all of my worldly possesions were with me in the dorms.

In the process of moving, the students found some old halloween stuff I had leftover from all those orchestra concerts in college, including a red cape. They were fascinated with the cape to an unhealthy degree. Soon the demands started to come in to see the cape, wear the cape etc. etc.

Around this time one of the students was having some computer trouble, so I gave him the key to my apartment one night as I was going out so he could do some research without going to the lab. Only trusting them so much (and apparently too much), I hid the cape (though not very well) before leaving.

The next morning, I opened the door to find a note taped to it....a ransom note. It seemed that the students had kidnapped a carebear I had gotten as a graduation present from a friend (I'll again refer you to the fact that I was living out of my car). I hadn't noticed it was gone, but I guess in their frustration at not finding the cape they turned to kidnapping. The note simply read (in cut out magazine letters): "Hand over the cape or lucky bear gets it."

After firmly laying down the policy that we did not negotiate with terrorists, and several failed stings and searches later, the bear was returned unharmed, though apparently after being locked in a trunk for the rest of the month. Unfortunately, the persons responsible were never brought to justice.

The CLP students are always a lot of fun, but I think the '04 class will hold the title for most creative and outlandish accomplishment for a long time.