For those of you who know me, you know that I am so not a rule breaker. I have my moments, but overall, I shy away from things that can get me in trouble – partly because I never react well and call everyone “Sir” or “Ma’am” when I’m nervous. And, as I’ve recently learned, I just should not do that. Hence, I needed a wingman, the one and only Mr. Cornell, MN, to accomplish # 2. Bury a bottle of Bacardi on the slope, dig it up on Slope Day – or, for now, the first half of # 21.

The adventure began after Game 3 in the Rangers playoff series against the Senator, which the Rangers won. Heck yes. It was supposed to rain, but on the way to Yogurt Crazy (I know it’s the hot new trend, but come to Long Island and I’ll show you real fro-yo), we realized that Weather.com was lying (shocking) and that the ground would probably be extra soft – perfect for digging.

Unfortunately, liquor stores around here close at 10 p.m., so off to Wegmans (the #1 supermarket in America) we went for a digging utensil. I say digging utensil because we did not get a gardening shovel. No, we decided that, come Slope Day, a legit gardening tool would be a bit too obvious, so we got a less mainstream “shovel”. Sorry, readers, not sharing what we used quite yet. I have to keep as many details on the D-L as possible to increase our chances of actually completing part 2 of the epic #21.

The next day, MN and I discussed our plan: we would meet up, dressed in dark attire (to blend in with the night), around 10 p.m. If there was too much foot traffic, we would go back at 3 a.m. I was anti-3 a.m., both because I like sleep, and because two people chilling on the slope at 3 a.m. is just plain weird. Well, 10 o’clock rolled around, and we were off. Apparently I was exuding nerves, as MN kept laughing at me, but thankfully the slope was blissfully empty.

We picked a spot, sat down, and tried to look normal. Thankfully, we’d seen a bunch of auxiliary police examining an unattended bag outside of Willard Strait (maybe someone was trying out #72, perhaps?), but then leaving the unattended bag alone. So, we knew that any officials of the law casually roaming the area would be easy to spot and we’d be able to hide all evidence and avoid any trouble. Exhale. 

MN did most of the digging while I kept watch like a boss. Then we buried the evidence, mapped our location, booked it off the slope, and spent the rest of our walk discussing just how awesome that was.

So, come Slope Day, if you see two people casually digging, I’d say don’t crowd, but perhaps you should to help hide what we’re doing, and hopefully we’ll be able to finish off the second half of #21…I’ll drink to that.

Jaime Freilich is a junior in the College of Human Ecology. She may be reached at jfreilich@cornellsun.com. Big Red Ambition appears on Wednesdays.