I attended UW Madison in the early '80s when a fascinating situation occurred on the tenth floor of my dorm, Witte Hall. In those days, an upper classman was assigned to be the "house fellow." He or she would help Freshmen transition to campus life, as well as address other issues associated with living in the dorms. Our house fellow was a jovial guy named Maurice who had to deal with one of those other "issues."
Identical twin brothers lived on my dorm floor, both of whom were very talented pianists, but one painfully shy. He was a nice guy who barely said a word and when he did, you had to lean in to hear him.
One evening, the quiet kid, Tom, gets out of bed in the middle of the night and knocks on Maurice's door. Glassy-eyed, the house fellow opens his door and finds Tom, standing there.
"There's a girl in my bed," Tom deadpans.
"Well, good for you," cracks Maurice, half-asleep. "Why are you bothering me?" he asks.
"No, no…" Tom starts to explain. "I have no idea who she is. She just walked into my room and climbed into my bed. She's still there."
Maurice shakes his head, gets dressed and goes down the hall to investigate. A house fellow's work is never done.
Sure enough, there's a drunken young lady sleeping in Tom's bed. I don't recall whether or not she had clothes on, so I imagine she did. I'd have remembered a naked girl in his bed. Much better story, but I digress…
In any case, it turns out, shockingly, that this student had way too many drinks, stepped onto the elevator in the right building, road it to the tenth floor, walked down the hall and entered "her room." The problem was that she lived on the ninth floor and not the tenth! She did, however, go to the right-numbered room on the correct side of the hall. Those hallways do indeed look identical.
I've always thought that of all the wrong rooms to stumble into inebriated, in an entire dorm filled with horny guys, this one was by far her safest miss. It's the one you'd hope your daughter wanders into, if she were to make a similar room-identification error while tipsy.
Think of the quietest, introverted person you've ever met and you will know Tom—the guy who complained to his house fellow about a college girl who hopped into his bed in the middle of the night.