Following a fight with his parents and older siblings, Bucky McCallister ’22 claims he was left home alone for the entirety of fall break. According to the McCallister family, a temporary power outage in their hotel caused their alarm clocks to reset, leading them to oversleep and rush to the airport to make their flight. In the confusion, McCallister was left behind.

“I wished that my family would just disappear,” McCallister said over a large tub of ice cream. “I thought it came true. They never came to pick me up and I had the whole campus to myself.”

McCallister recalled how, without parental supervision, he was finally able to kick back and relax on his floor, watching R-rated movies and eating all the junk food he wanted as his family slowly realized that he was missing.

“I couldn’t believe we left him on campus all by himself,” McCallister’s mother said with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t think he would be able to survive on his own. Who would cook his meals and clean his laundry?”

Little did McCallister know, however, that while he was enjoying himself in his abandoned McDonnell Hall floor, a pair of Lewisburg burglars, infamous for breaking into campus housing and stealing personal belongings while the campus is less active, had their sights set on his very dorm. Known as the “’Nell Bandits,” the two thieves planned their McDonnell heist on the last day of the vacation period. Thankfully, McCallister was prepared.

“I stole some of those huge cut-outs of Josh Peck from the ELC and made it look like we were throwing a rager on the hall,” McCallister said. “They bought it for a little while.”

The illusion, however, did not last long. Before McCallister could call Public Safety, the ’Nell Bandits found a way onto the hall and spotted the first-year. They were met with heavy resistance.

“We have CCTV footage of the entire night and I have to say I’m amazed that those guys are still breathing right now,” an anonymous Public Safety officer said. “You wouldn’t believe how many booby traps you can fit in one common room.”

According to the forensics team on duty, McCallister created a variety of makeshift traps out of the resources he had on hand, including a small catapult that fired unopened history textbooks and a bucket of every type of alcohol that turned the floor into a treacherous slip-and-slide for the burglars.

By the time officers finally arrived on scene and the McCallister family was reunited, the bandits were already incapacitated. McCallister had little to say about his time alone, but did give reporters one last quote regarding the traumatic experience.

“Happy fall break, ya filthy animal,” McCallister said.