From time to time, when Bwog doesn’t have a lot of homework, we’ll run a review of free things. Tonight is that night again. Here’s our report from CCSC 2012’s Mugs + Hugs.

Waiting anxiously for friends in the Schapiro lobby, Bwog heard a frantic student getting off the elevator bark into his phone, “you’re already in Lerner? And the line is long?” And so we ran.

As we swiped into Lerner, we saw one boy in a sweatshirt sprint up the ramps to stand in line. By 9:50, ten minutes before the event was set to start, the line snaked from the West Ramp Lounge  and approached the turnstile.

The atmosphere was a mix of Christmas morning and East Berlin. People tried to skip the line.

But why did we care so much? Why did we wait in line only to avoid contact with, like, everyone from our Lit Hum class? Because, as one junior pointed out, your class mug is something you keep when you’re 35 and put it on your desk at work. So we waited.

Our CCSC 2012 council opened the doors at 10 and juniors were let in in small groups. We showed our CUIDs—as if showing our papers at Checkpoint Charlie—and were handed our white mugs with a baby blue “12” with a tilted crown on top. CCSC 2012 heaped white chocolate Hershey’s kisses into our mugs. We went outside to gloat. One girl passed a friend wondering if he should stay in line. “Yeah, they’re good enough,” she replied.

It was all over by 10:19. Apparently they ran out of mugs.