They were all gathering and chatting, waiting to go off to dinner with more of their friends. I felt so bad for crashing their party and ruining their plans, especially since I knew Matt was having guests and since I told him via email that I'd had a place to stay. I kept apologizing, but everyone said that it wasn't a problem at all. I didn't really believe them, though.

The three tried calling hostels around Brown to find a place for me to stay that night, but couldn't find any that had openings or were less than motels. The motels that were cheap were also miles away through bad neighborhoods, not where these folks wanted to send a lost pedestrian. Local hotels were incredibly expensive.

The idea of my renting a car came up, so that I could drive to the cheap yet unsafe motels. If I had a car, I could sleep in it, said __4__. If I had a car, I could drive back to Boston and return the next morning, said __3__. Once we determined that renting a car was cheaper than anything else, we gave up on places where I'd have to pay to stay.

I mentioned my earlier joke about going home with some random girl I'd pick up at the club, and they all laughed since they weren't even in the same state the first time I used the line.

Then the three pals played a game where they'd think up friends who owed them favors that could put me up for the night. After that came joking about setting me up with spurned lovers. It would've been funnier if I knew the people, but they seemed to enjoy it all.

In the end, I wound up with plans to stay in the lounge of Matt's dorm. I felt so bad, but everyone assured me that everything was okay.