The smell of alcohol in the air, loud cars peeling out and snack food everywhere.

With this description, one would think it was a NASCAR race. But, sorry to disappoint, it’s DeKalb.

It’s past midnight on Saturday. What is there to do?

Well, if you’re a student, you could hit Greek Row or bar hop. To find out what students were up to, my editors had me stand outside 7-Eleven and Burritoville, on the corner of Annie Glidden and Hillcrest, from midnight until 2:30 a.m.

“It’s really busy here on Friday and Saturday nights,” said Tizita Abbas, overnight cashier at 7-Eleven. “Usually the people are pretty friendly here, and there are no problems.”

According to Abbas, most of the students buy cigarettes, drinks, Slurpees or get a snack. On weekdays, the 7-Eleven employees usually stock shelves and work the cash register. But on weekends it’s harder to stock because of the amount of people.

From midnight to 1 a.m., there were few people spending more than 15 minutes outside 7-Eleven.

Around 1 a.m., as the bars got ready to close, older students headed to 7-Eleven in mass quantities. Some students started getting plans finalized for the night, and began looking for rides home.

“We were just at the bar and now we might walk over to the frats,” said Chelsea Edwards, junior special education major.

At 2 a.m., the store had calmed down and so had the music. Students were less in a rush to get to a party and more excited about going home to get some sleep.

Things got out of hand when a fight broke out between two males at Burritoville. According to Lt. Carl Leoni of the DeKalb police department, the fight started verbally, but escalated to a physical level. Twelve squad cars arrived on the scene.

I learned a few things in my two and a half hours of loitering outside 7-Eleven. I learned college students are not as friendly at the beginning of the night, but as time went on and the alcohol flowed, I was able to talk to more people and even get a few phone numbers.

Not everything after 2 a.m. is good though. Throughout the night, I saw 19 people throw up on the street or in the grass, heard 11 cars peel out and was bombarded by rap blasting from cars that even Xzibit couldn’t pimp. I was propositioned to buy alcohol for minors and even cigarettes for underage high school students.

In the end, most of the students passing by were looking for a good time, but some had too good of a time and should have gone home earlier.