Big tippin delivery

I got a $10 tip the other day. 10 big ones, 10 bones, 10 g-string streamers. All for a single delivery of two sandwiches and two drinks, both for one person. When the dude called the shop -right at the end of my shift, 10pm or so- our conversation went something like this:

Dude -I got a big favor to ask
Me -Shoot
-See I’m kind of locked in the wresting office of Carver Arena and I was wondering if the deliveryman can, like, come in the building and drop the food off with me, down here in the basement.
-Uh, if the tip’s good.
-I’m a very generous tipper
(shwing)
-Yeah, sure can I get your number?
-Ok, it’s 515-296… oh shit, I forgot they took my phone away, let me see if I can find the office number…

And so on. This dude was locked two floors under ground, no phone, presumably chained to a desk with a Jimmy Johns menu and credit card, needing lots of food and lots of soda.
So I take the order, saddle up my bike, and trek the two miles to Carver, only to find that the whole building is locked, powered down, and desolate; there’s not even a car in the parking lot. I stumble around in the darkness for a while, try to force the ticket box door open, give up, and call the office number the dude gave.

The phone rings for about a month, then, out of breath and surprised, the dude answers. “Head towards the glowing outhouse by the north entrance, it’s unlocked." I do a little more stumbling and sure enough, there by the north entrance I find a glass outpost building, illuminated by an internal florescent light, with a cracked open door. Once inside a switchback staircase leads me down two floors to an unlit office hallway. Skylights that lead to the ground allow enough moonlight to see pictures of former athletes, diving teams, runners, gymnasts; but not enough moonlight to keep me from tripping on every loose cord and carpet edge for the next twenty yards. I catch my bag on a door handle, step in a trashcan, flip over chairs; I am a midnight hallway tornado.

I come upon the wrestling office, the only illuminated door in the hall, and once inside the room find six or seven wrestlers, black eyed and cauliflower eared, sitting in cubicles, reading textbooks and writing notes. “Homework lockdown” the dude calls it. The biggest wrestler, a guy who’s elbows made his office desk bend in when he leaned, told me athlete are required to log in a certain amount of homework hours a week. He was there to make sure they did.

With my pocket weighed down by an engorged credit card receipt I went home thinking about how strange college must be for athletes.