After a trip to what he thought was a popular campus nightclub, Jerry Baberams ’07 returned to his empty dorm room last Thursday crushed by the realization that Olin is, in fact, the University library. He attributes the misunderstanding to terminology commonly used to describe the library.
“My friends say they’re going to Club Olin all the time, or Club O or The Club or just Olin,” Baberams said. “I never go because I have too much work, but finally last Thursday I got it all done early so I could make a night of it.”
Baberams said he began the evening pre-gaming with friends, and told them he was going to Club Olin when they left to attend other parties. He recalls their amused reaction.
“They seemed to think it was strange that I’d wander off to Olin drunk a little before midnight, and maybe that should have been my first clue,” Baberams said. “I just figured they were intimidated. They asked if I had a lot of work to do, and I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ll be working it all night.’ You know, working it.”
Baberams then recounts listening to the new Outkast CD while changing into his club outfit.
“I was getting ready to shake it, shake it, shake it like a polaroid picture,” Baberams said. “Right before I left, I put up an away message that said CLUB OLIN in all caps. It was such a great feeling.”
Baberams said he arrived at Olin Memorial Library at 12:34 a.m. to meet his girlfriend, who had mentioned she would be there that night. She wishes to remain anonymous.
“I’m not his girlfriend,” she said. “He asked really awkwardly if I thought we could ever explore the stacks together once. I said sure. I think he really read into that. How was I supposed to know that was code for some weird sex fantasy?”
Baberams explained that he believed “the stacks” was an inner area of the club where, according to his sources, couples often had sex. He recalls overhearing two young undergraduates discuss their plans to copulate there, and that they had selected a specific location and night: Saturday at nine, when Olin would be empty.
“It always seemed like people didn’t go to the club as much on the weekends, but that was just a cultural Wes-thing to me. Like the way people always go to the bar just on Wednesdays,” Baberams said. “The bar. It is really a bar, right?”
Baberams entered the library through the front door after traversing the well-lit front steps, which he found encouraging.
“There were some people out there smoking, taking a break I guess, getting some air,” Baberams said. “I shook my head as I walked up and went, ‘Yeah, it is crazy in there.’ I didn’t want them to know it was my first time.”
Baberams then approached the student working at the circulation desk, who he believed was a bouncer.
“I thought I was going to need to talk my way in, but the bouncer seemed to really like me. She just pointed at this bar thing and told me I could go in, just like that,” Baberams said.
He interpreted the employee’s behavior as encouragement and attempted to pick her up by inviting her to accompany him to “the stacks.”
“She asked what I wanted to find in the stacks, but before I could answer, this guy came up behind me like he wanted to take over,” Baberams said. “I shoved him around a little, because he was moving in on my territory. Then she threatened to call p-safe on me.”
Baberams recalls this being the point he realized something was a little off.
“She pointed to this door on the other side of the guy and said, ‘that’s the stacks, please go find what you need,’” Baberams said. “Then I saw him give her a book and she scanned it under this laser-thing. To be honest, it made me nervous. Like what if she shot me with it? So I went into the stacks real fast.”
Baberams described himself freezing mid-step.
“There were books everywhere. People were wandering around with little pieces of paper, squinting at the spines. There was no sex. No music. Nobody else had glowsticks or leather pants and I suddenly felt like an asshole,” Baberams said.
After asking several students where the club was, Baberams was forced to acknowledge the building’s true identity. He returned home, where he woke up with a hangover and the shards of his own shattered illusion throbbing in his head.
Baberams’ case, unfortunately, is not an isolated incident. Many choose not to accept the reality he discovered, even after years of exposure.
“What are you talking about?” said third-year circulation worker Naomi Ekperigin ’05. “Olin is a club, and I am the bouncer.”
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