Many years ago, I attended a boarding school. At this school, we had a procedure for when students left campus for non-school-sponsored reasons. We had to fill out a card saying where we were going, and when we expected to be back. A member of dorm staff had to sign off on it, and then we were free to follow our plans.

One day, a group of friends and I collectively decided to go to McDonald’s for dinner. The group consisted of mostly boys, but also two girls (including myself). The other girl and I dutifully filled out our cards, listing our estimated return time as 6:00, and the dorm staff signed off on it. Off we went to McDonalds, as teenagers do.

Fast forward a few hours to approximately 5:45. We’ve returned to campus, and we’ve stopped at the boys’ dorm because it’s closer. While we’re there, we all decide to watch a DVD together, so the other girl and I call the girls’ dorm to let them know we’re back on campus. We then get this conversation…

Me: “Hey, [Other Girl] and I are back, we’re hanging out at the boys’ dorm.”

Dorm Staff: “What do you mean, you’re back?”

Me: “We’re…back on campus? We went to McDonalds?”

Dorm Staff: “The dorm is closed! You’re supposed to be at the game!”

Me: “What game?”

Dorm Staff: “The [sport] game! It’s required! The bus left at 5:00!”

Me: “Uh…what? Nobody mentioned that to [Other Girl] and me. Why didn’t somebody say something when we put on our cards that we’d be back at 6:00?”

Dorm Staff: “Wait, you did?”

Me: “Yes?”

Dorm Staff: “…”

Me: “…”

Dorm Staff: “Just…stay at the boys’ dorm for now. The girls’ dorm will probably re-open around 9:00.”

Me: “…okay.”

After hanging up, I relay all this to the other girl, who is quite as baffled as I am. We ultimately shrug it off, since neither of us is remotely interested in sports, and the movie would have kept us out that late anyway. As best we can figure, we had sufficient ‘good girl’ reputations that the dorm staff hadn’t actually looked at what they were signing off on.

And for the record, I wasn’t censoring the sport involved. This happened sufficiently far in the past that I honestly don’t remember what the sport was. As I’ve said, I wasn’t interested in sports, and I definitely wasn’t complaining about accidentally avoiding the whole thing. And no, the boys’ dorm wasn’t closed for the game, only the girls’. Which is weird, because I could have sworn it was a boys’ sport, but whatever.

I work as the receptionist in an all-girls boarding school. It has been an all-girls school since its inception more than a century ago. We are a college prep school, but Google sees all boarding schools equally, so we do get a not-insignificant number of calls from folks who are looking for a boarding school in general, a military type of school, and the full spectrum of boarding school stereotypes.

Usually, all I have to do is apologize for the confusion and explain that we’re not what they’re looking for. I advise them on what boarding school search sites are more accurate than Google, I wish them luck with their search, they thank me, and we all move on with our day.

Until this call.

Caller: “Hi. I’m calling to see if you do mid-year admissions.”

Me: “Yes, we do rolling admission here.”

Caller: “Great! I’m interested in enrolling my son.”

I figure this is a normal mix-up call.

Me: “Oh, I’m so sorry, but we’re an all-girls school, so we won’t be able to enroll your son.”

Caller: “Why?”

Me: “…Well, ma’am, because we’re an all-girls school. We don’t enroll boys.”

Caller: “Why?”

Me: “…Because our founders were interested in educating girls. We’ve followed that ever since.”

Caller: “Can you change it?”

I’m starting to crack, stifling a laugh.

Me: “No, I’m sorry. That’s not something I’ll be able to do.”

Caller: “Why?”

I’m starting to think this is a joke.

Me: *Half-chuckling* “Because this is what we are, ma’am.”

Caller: “I don’t appreciate your attitude about this!”

I’m still not sure I’m not being pranked.

Me: “Well, ma’am, you called a well-established all-girls school to enroll your son. We cannot make that change just for you. It’s just not a possibility.”

With a big sigh, she hangs up, leaving me staring at the phone in my hand.

Me: “What just happened?”

She has not called back since.

Many years ago, I worked as a boarding house assistant and assistant teacher in a boarding school in Australia. During the holidays, I would stay at the school. I was the only one there, and it was slightly creepy wandering the empty rooms and corridors of the boarding house. There was a TV room, which was a large empty room with large windows, a TV in a cabinet in the middle of the room, and a sofa in front of it. I would get VHS tapes from the local library so I could watch movies on those long lonely nights.

One night, I rented “Sleepy Hollow”. I was sitting in the middle of this dark and empty room, while a storm was raging outside. Rain pounded against the windows, and I really regretted not pushing the sofa up against the wall so there would be one less direction the monsters could come from.

Suddenly, during the scene when the Hessian emerges from the tree, I heard a loud bang. The door had opened, and in the doorway I saw a tall figure in a long, black, shiny coat holding something in their hand, backlit by the light in the corridor.

I shrieked, jumped, and fell off the sofa. I lay there awaiting a gruesome death. Then, the light was switched on and the caretaker (wearing a rain slicker and holding a torch) asked:

Caretaker: “Who are you and what are you doing here?”

It turned out that nobody had told him that someone was staying over the holidays. Since then, I have only ever watched horror films with all the lights on. And the sofa against the wall.

Around the start of the school year, my international boarding school holds a Food Fair where we all showcase local foods from home. As the best baker in school, I am slated to bake four or five big pandan cakes for the Food Fair.

Of the many kitchens available to students, there are only two in the whole school which I would consider adequately stocked: [Kitchen #1] and [Kitchen #2]. With the Food Fair only a few days away, [Kitchen #1] is fully booked, but that isn’t much of an issue. I prefer baking in [Kitchen #2], anyway.

But there is a small snag in the plan: [Kitchen #2] is inside the largest dorm, which is a boys’ dorm, and the only person willing to assist me in the baking process is a girl.

The school has a zero-tolerance policy for people entering the opposite gender dorm. I believe the punishments include suspension and expulsion.

Luckily, I am able to argue my case, and given that I am known to be a well-behaved lad, the school gives me special permission to bring [Assistant] into the boy’s dorm. The Vice Principal himself tells me that it is the first time in school history that a female student will legally enter a boy’s dorm.

[Assistant] and I enter the dorm — every single boy in the vicinity looking completely flummoxed — and begin the baking process. I turn on the oven to preheat while we mix the batter.

Assistant: *Giggling* “Look at all their faces. They can’t believe that you actually brought me in here.”

Me: *Laughs* “Yeah, I mean, we boys have smuggled girls in before, but you’re the very first— Wait, do you smell smoke?”

We both look down and realise that the oven is on fire, and we jump back in fright.

Assistant & Me: “Aaahhhh!”

Assistant: “It’s on fire! What do we do?”

I promptly hit the fire alarm, and a teacher is able to quickly come in with a fire extinguisher and put out the flames.

Me: “Oh, dear. Um, sir, I hope I’m not in any trouble.”

He waves a hand dismissively.

Teacher: “It’s all right. The oven was old, anyway. Just use the second oven only.” *Walks away*

Me: “This was not how I expected today to go.”

We both continue baking and manage to produce the cakes as promised. Within three days, the entire school has heard about our little incident.

On Monday, my entire class corners me and demands answers.

Me: “Yes, it’s true. We set the oven on fire.”

Male Classmate #1: “I don’t care about the oven. Nobody cares about the oven! That’s not important!”

Female Classmate #1: “Yeah! We all need to know one thing.”

Male Classmate #2: “How in the world did you legally bring a girl into [Boy’s Dorm]?! What magics did you use?”

Me: “That’s what you’re concerned about? We burned an oven!”

Female Classmate #2: “Who cares about the fire? How did you get permission to bring a girl into the dorm?”

Me: “But the fire…”

Later…

Assistant: “My entire class cornered me during first period, and you will not believe what they asked me.”

Me: “Let me guess: they didn’t ask you anything about the fire. Instead, they all asked how you legally entered [Boy’s Dorm]? And how to do it themselves?”

Assistant: “Yup. Nobody cared about the fire. Nobody at all!”

I’m a new boarding school student, and the prefects are showing us underclassmen around town. We’ve been to the highlights, like the church, main shopping street, nice restaurants, and such.

Prefect #1: “And if you go up that hill, you’ll come to [Restaurant]. Best Italian food I’ve ever had in my life.”

Prefect #2: “Agreed. Everything there is good. Good food, good wine…”

Me: “Wine?”

Prefect #2: “We’re past eighteen, love. Legal to drink. Anyway, like I was saying, really fine place. Affordable, too.”

Prefect #1: “Yup. Just don’t try the Giga Pizza Challenge. You’ll lose. Both in terms of dignity and in terms of cash.”

Schoolmate: “Huh, I can take it. How bad can it be?”

Prefect #1: “My girlfriend said that when she was in your shoes last year. She couldn’t finish even a quarter of it. And even after [Prefect #2], [Upperclassmen], and I joined in to help her, we could barely finish a third of the thing.”

Prefect #2: “Yup. The four of us spent the rest of the week eating the leftovers. It. Was. Not. Fun.”

Schoolmate: “Well, you four are girls. Step aside and let a real man show you how it’s done.”

Prefect #1: “I don’t mind, but you have to promise that you’ll pay for the thing.”

And with that, our lunch destination is decided. As promised, [Schoolmate] orders the Giga Pizza Challenge. It is apparently free if someone can eat the whole thing by themselves in half an hour.

Prefect #1: “Nobody order anything else. We won’t be needing the extra food.”

Prefect #2: “Ah, but we’ll be having a bottle of the house red. This is gonna be good.”

Schoolmate: “Watch and learn, ladies. Watch and learn.”

And then the Giga Pizza comes out, and [Schoolmate] actually looks visibly concerned at the size of the thing. It’s the largest pizza I’ve ever seen. It is like five feet in diameter. It’s so large that its eight slices had to be baked individually in the pizza oven before being put together into a larger whole. And the sheer number of toppings is mind-boggling. It is almost three-dimensional with how many there are.

To his credit, [Schoolmate] puts up a valiant fight. He makes it more than a third of the way through before throwing in the towel.

Prefect #1: “Hey, he did better than the four of us combined.”

Prefect #2: “Still lost, though. Ah, well.”

She then informs the waiter of [Schoolmate]’s surrender, allowing us all to stop spectating and start eating the Giga Pizza.

Including the prefects, there are a dozen or so of us there, and we can’t even finish the d*** thing. [Schoolmate] has to return to the dorms with two massive slices of the Giga Pizza and an empty wallet.

I later become a prefect myself, and the next year…

Me: “Up that hill is the best Italian restaurant that I’ve ever been to. Just don’t try the Giga Pizza Challenge. You’ll lose.”

Underclassman: “I can take it. How bad can really it be?”

Spoiler alert: he couldn’t.

I’m told it’s essentially a school tradition that there’ll be at least one idiot in the new arrivals every year who thinks that he or she can take the Giga Pizza. And just as traditionally, they fail.

I wonder how long it’ll take before people realise that the challenge is futile.