While in the summertime most of the neighborhood is made up of respectable young couples, families, elderly people, and petty criminals, all of this changes every fall as all of the rental units fill up with raving 18-year-old lunatics exploring life away from authority for the first time in their lives. The first weekend is something to behold. Unlike most of the permanent residents of my neighborhood, I always look forward to the first weekend of college classes. This is probably because I work nights, and also because I have a natural love of watching drunken chaos.

Often I forget what time of the year it is. Oh, I know that it's late summertime, and I'm even aware that it's August. But whenever I see a back-to-school ad or a group of kids walking down the street, I have to stop and think: Is this the time of year that school starts? Or is school ending? Wait. I forget...

But there's no mistaking the onset of college weekend. It starts off the same way every year, when the streets are lined with huge 2007 Chevy S-10s, and guys in button-down shirts and Dockers are pacing up and down the sidewalks, cell phones clipped on their belts and sunglasses perched on their heads, barking orders as other, dirtier men clear brush, trim hedges, and haul away beer-soaked furniture.

Yes, before the students arrive, they are preceded by the slumlords. Up from some Twin Cities suburban nightmare or their annual property inspection. This is the first warning.

Then there is an almost imperceptible pause, a sort of calm before the storm. You might see some parents hauling in a desk or two. You might see some unfamiliar kids dragging giant Target bags from the trunk of a car. But really, nothing seems out of the order. Yet.

Suddenly, one Friday night, if you work until 11pm or midnight as I do, you'll come home from work and walk straight into one of the funniest zombie movies you'll ever see. Forget about parking on the street, because that just isn't going to happen. Prepare to park three blocks away, but when you do, don't get annoyed. This just gives you the opportunity to walk through the madness on your way home.

See this? Here's a girl wearing a skin-tight Superman T-shirt, passed out against a stop sign. A few yards away, two boys argue about whether or not the other one has ever heard of K-rations. All over the place, people are using cars, trees, buildings, and each other to hold themselves up. And everywhere, hundreds of times this night, people will scream "I'm soooooo drunk!!!" in both amazement and despair.

This is the sound of freedom.

And because these people are young, and therefore resilient, the hilarity won't stop after that one night. It will go on and on. For about two months.

That's about how long it takes for half of them to drop out and move back home. In which case, we get to park in front of our own houses again.