You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension – a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. You’ve just crossed over into the residence hall zone.

Imagine this, if you will: It’s been a long day and you come back to your floor for a long, hot shower. You somehow accomplish this, turn off the water, slip on your robe and walk back to your room only to have your world come crashing down. The door won’t open – in fact it’s locked, and you are without a key.

If you lose your key in any one of NIU’s residence halls you have few options – including scrawling “You locked me out! I’m in ___’s room!” across your door and just hope your roomie comes back and maybe no one will notice you’re still in the aforementioned robe.

The residence halls do allow you one “mishap” for which they will allow you to use a temporary key. This is a policy which has left me pondering many a time whether the situation was serious enough to use up my precious “get out of jail free” card.

For those locked out in their robes, the situation can be a bit more interesting (and hilarious to the bystander). If you choose to avoid the door scrawling route, there’s just one more problem to solve. What exactly do you use as ID when you have none?