New Bwogger Reyna Choi sets the story straight.

In cultures where four is the number of death – and sometimes even outside of those cultures – many buildings do not have a fourth floor.

Carman is not one of those buildings; Carman has a fourth floor: Carman 4.

I live on Carman 4. And Carman 4 is cursed.

Here’s the evidence:

  • On move-in day, ten minutes after my parents tearfully left, I shattered my brand new mug.
  • Halfway through NSOP, someone that doesn’t even live on our floor puked in our lounge. (This is important)
  • Massive cockroaches.
  • Our lounge view is a brick wall (I’m just upset about this one)
  • And, oh yeah, that whole glass door exploding situation that everyone knows about.

Hi. My name is Reyna, and I broke the Carman glass. Specifically, the left glass lounge door on Carman 4.

It was Friday, August 30th, at the tail end of NSOP. It was my sixth day on campus, and after a week of required icebreakers and going out into the city every night, I wanted a peaceful night in. I was going to do my skincare routine, put on a facemask, pull on some fuzzy socks, and burrito blanket myself before the clock struck midnight.

With that in mind, my friends left for another night of fun, wishing me a good night’s sleep while I ascended up the stairs.

Because our floor reeked of vomit due to that whole someone-puked-in-our-lounge-incident, we had a silent agreement to keep our lounge doors closed at all times. This agreement was not being upheld when two of my floormates and I arrived on Carman 4 that night.

The pungent smell of rancid spew slithered its way into our nostrils.

People rushed from the elevators into a party, desperate to both get away from the smell and to socialize.

Two of my floormates headed to their room for shelter while I went to seal away the smell.

I closed the sliding glass doors as I and many others had done before, but this time, as the right one collided with the left, I saw the glass in the left door crack, spiderweb, and explode down.

I jumped back, screaming and reaching to the ground for stability. My two floormates ran back to see what had happened.

They dragged me away from the glass, stood in front of the elevators to make sure people weren’t walking into shards, called the RA’s, and warned the party people about the situation.

Word spread around pretty quickly thanks to the crowds of people from the party posting all over Snapchat. Even after a service alert was sent saying that the Carman 4 lounge was closed and signs were posted on each floor saying not to stop at 4, people continued to come see the spectacle.

Meanwhile, I was hugging my knees while shaking and crying. My two floormates took me to their room to calm me down. They made me chamomile tea, killed a cockroach, and plotted to steal the door handle as I continued to cry, shake, and occasionally laugh, unable to comprehend the situation.

After explaining what had happened, I took up the police officer’s offer to see CUEMS. I had felt itchy and found specks of glass on my chest, but my long sleeves and a m a z i n g reflexes saved me from any further damage.

My two floormates stuck around outside of Carman until I came out of the ambulance, happy to see that I had calmed down a lot and that I wasn’t going to drop dead.

Back on my floor, I profusely apologized to the party’s hosts (my friends and floormates, who were all ridiculously nice to me and just glad to see that I was okay) and called my parents to tell them that I had just accidentally broken school property.

The next morning, I could hear people talking about the incident at breakfast. There were a few rumors:

  • A guy was mad at his girlfriend and punched the door
  • Someone from the party threw a bottle at the door
  • This really really strong person just went Hulk mode and slammed the doors together as hard as they could
  • It was during a game of bin spin (you sit in one of those blue moving bins while people spin you)

The incident blew up on Barstool Columbia, giving even more attention to the situation.

Nowadays, people still stop on our floor just to see the single-doored lounge, people still ask what happened to the door when I say I live on Carman 4, and people still get shocked and demand to hear the story when they find out it was me.

Within a week of being on campus, I had left a legacy as the girl that broke a Carman glass door during NSOP.

I had just wanted a calm night in – I was completely sober, I’m not freakishly strong, it wasn’t because I was angry with the world and took it out on the doors, and I actually was not playing bin spin. I just didn’t want to smell the puke anymore.

But who knows? Carman 5 had some glass from their doors shatter a little recently, so maybe the curse of Carman 4 is spreading.