Josh is my best friend from high school who now attends Florida State University in Tallahassee. He shared with me an FSU urban legend that he was told by his RA upon entering as a freshman.

Informant:

“A few years ago there was this guy that lived on the same floor I lived on freshman year… It was one of the first weekends of the semester; he went out to some party, had a few beers, was having a good time, and was really hitting it off with this girl. Pretty standard. She invited him to another party, and she was super pretty so he agreed and went along with her. He didn’t know any of the people at the new party, but they started drinking more heavily and pretty soon he started making friends. These people at the new party were all smoking and taking drugs, and even though he had never messed around with that stuff before he was pretty drunk and kinda curious so when they offered him some, he took it. Next thing he knew, he woke up completely naked in a bathtub filled with ice with a nasty hangover. When he finally got up and stumbled over to the sink, in the mirror he saw “CALL 911 OR YOU WILL DIE” written on his chest in Sharpie. Obviously that freaked him out, so he grabbed a phone and called. He tried to explain to the EMS operator what the situation was – that he didn’t know where he was, what he took, or really even why he was calling. His back was killing him which he figured was from sleeping in a tub, but he reached back and found two long wounds running along his lower back. The operator was really disturbed by this; she told him to get back into the ice-tub, and that she was sending a rescue team to his location immediately.

Apparently, he had had his kidneys stolen. They’re worth ten thousand dollars each on the black market, which for a college student is a whole lot of cash. Some people say that some twisted person took advantage of the situation when they saw him passed out from the alcohol and drugs. Other people say the second party was a complete sham and that the stuff he had been offered was more than recreational party drugs.

Anyway, I don’t know. It probably didn’t happen but it’s still freaky to think.”

Analysis:

RAs are charged with a difficult task: overseeing the general well-being of incoming freshmen who are living away from their parents for the first time. Curiosity over drugs or alcohol is common for kids that age, and RAs must try to prevent the students under their charge from getting into trouble or hurting themselves as best they can. There are plenty of true horror stories of the awful toll drugs can take on a person, but young adults are known to be rebellious and an adult listing off health dangers or reading news stories could come across as preach-y. Being told in the form of a legend makes a cautionary tale about the dangers of alcohol and drugs much more palatable to college-age kids.