My Morning: A Play in One Uncomfortable Act

ME: Do do do do WHOA!
 
HALF-NAKED COUPLE IN MY OFFICE: GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!
 
ME: What?
 
HALF-NAKED FEMALE: DON'T YOU KNOCK? (putting shirt back on)
 
ME: Before I come into my office?
 
HALF-NAKED MALE: GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! (buttoning pants)
 
ME: (starting to enjoy this) I have a student coming in two minutes.  Finish up.
 
HALF-NAKED, BLUE-BALLED MALE: GO ALREADY!
 
ME: (closes door, waits one minute, knocks) Are you decent?
 
HALF-NAKED MALE: GO THE FUCK AWAY!  THIS IS PRIVATE!  WE'RE BUSY!
 
ME: (holding the door half-open) I'm coming in.
 
HALF-NAKED MALE: STOP HARASSING US YOU PERVERT OR I'LL REPORT YOU!
 
ME: (still holding door) You'll report me for your having sex in my office?
 
HALF-NAKED MALE: GO THE FUCK AWAY!
 
ME: (still holding door) That's it.  Put your clothes back on.  You can't have sex in my office.
 
HALF-NAKED MALE: DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE COME IN HERE!

(my student walks up)
 
MY STUDENT: What's going on?
 
ME: (still holding door) Some people are trying to have sex in my office.  I keep interrupting them.
 
MY STUDENT: Are they really having sex in there?
 
HALF-NAKED MALE: THIS IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT!
 
ME: (props open door with rubber stop) They're trying.

This continues for a couple more minutes. He shouts profanity, she starts crying, &c. About two minutes later the couple emerges and I get some nasty looks. Who am I to stop them from having sex in my office?

UPDATE: For the record, I have been funny before.

UPDATE II: Read this.  It explains everything.

UPDATE III: Don't read UPDATE II.  Read this instead.

Comments

[Stephen]

Aren't those office doors in Krieger Hall normally locked? How did they get in there?

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

They are, which is one of the reasons I had Kathleen put in a request to change the locks on my office door. I believe what happened is that since my once spacious office is now being filled with departmental detritus, someone left the door unlocked when he or she left. Still (shivers) I hope they haven't been doing this all quarter.

[ben wolfson]

I can't wait to have an office.

[New Kid on the Hallway]

Wow.

That's really all I have to say.

Just - wow.

[Rebecca]

Yeah, New Kid, I'm right there with you. Wow. I've had some odd office experiences, but that just takes the cake.

[Paul Gowder]

Memo from the department chair tomorrow: "you will be sharing your office with..."

[Bill Tozier]

Me, I just want to know: undergraduate, graduate, faculty, staff, or passers-by?

[nerf poodles]

Apparently the director in your mind didn't 'cue porno music' at the right time to allow you to join in and get supa-freaky. That is what usually happens, right?

[nerf poodles]

Apparently the director in your mind didn't 'cue porno music' at the right time to allow you to join in and get supa-freaky. That is what usually happens, right?

[John Doe]

"Dear ABA Letters,

I never would have believed this sort of thing really happened, but.."

[Timothy Burke]

Please tell me you are not serious. This actually happened?

People were having sex in your office and they told you to get out? What?

Like Bill, I'm dying to know: are these students? physical plant staff? colleagues? The scenario is a bit different depending on which it is. If it's students, that's especially alarming from a number of standpoints: how did they get in? I'd check my computer if I were you.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Am I the only one who didn't think that this story sounded that odd? Uh oh.

I mean, 18 year olds + no place to go (depending on their dorm policies or roommates or whatever) = inappropriate appropriation of any momentarily private space. It's not like people are paragons of adult judgement and self-control at that age.

[just john]

"Office" and "orifice" are easily confused words.

Did you ask them to come back later to sign copies of the surveillance videos?

[Timothy Burke]

Rich, it's someone's private office. Presumably with potentially confidential records in it that students in particular shouldn't be allowed to see.

Fucking in the bushes or in the library stacks or in a classroom closet I get. Entering someone's private office I don't get. Would you just say, "Hey, horny young people with bad judgement" if you came home and two college students that you didn't know were screwing on your couch, having broken in your back door cause they were feeling horny and your house happened to be nearby when the lust struck them? I mean, jeezus. Plus telling someone to get out of their own office so you can *finish your coitus*? Wow.

[Steve]

"I'm not even upset; I'm amazed!"

In all seriousness... wow.

Rich, as a college student, I'm offended by your remarks :-p that's what closets are for! Or at least a classroom for pete's sake. Somebody else's office? Never.

[Rich Puchalsky]

I guess I should clarify that Scott's right to have the locks changed, and that I certainly see why he'd be annoyed, and that the students involved sound even more self-centered than usual for people that age. But the basic situation? People have mentioned other places in which they wouldn't find this that surprising: the students, unlike Scott, probably didn't consider the office "filled with departmental detritus" to be an especially personal space, and I'd guess they found the door open. I mean, it makes a good story, but my shockedness that this might happen is at a similar level to Capt. Renault's.

[paul]

Steve (Thursday, 01 December 2005 at 08:09 AM) wrote that's what closets are for!

Is this part of the homosexual agenda I keep hearing about? Now that gays get to come out of the closet, straights are expected to take their place? Jeez. Maybe the fundies are right.

[Dave]

What gets me is the damn nerve! I mean really! Threatening to report you?!?!??
What the hell world are these kids living in?

[fearless leader]

Been there, done that

[Rebecca]

What a great story. I love the rubber door stopper part. I take it that if you're having the locks changed, they were undergrads?

[MT]

Sure it was your office, but you were ungenerous in your role as a teacher and scholar. Remember ultimately all of us have the same goal of advancing knowledge.

[fearless leader]

Forgive me, I didn't mean to sound pompous above, there was a loud knock on my door just as I prepared to comment, and it's not like people aren't out to get me these days.

Anyway, what I mean to say is that I can testify to profound effect these encounters can have on a psyche.

I have been the copulatee, not the copulator, in a few such instances and have always chucked it up to uncaring roommates back in the dormitory, insensitive to the intruder's biological urges.

And horomones. Lot's of hormones.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Rebecca S., since you're up there too, I'll answer you first: I'm 99% certain they were undergraduates. They may be very young graduate students from another department, but I doubt it. Nor do I think, as someone at the LJ staff meeting yesterday suggested, that they were exhibitionists, since the young lady left the room in tears. (I'm in 500C, that one on the corner facing HIB, and since the woman seemed reluctant to leave with me holding the door open, eventually my student and I went around to the side of the building so they could leave. I did really feel sorry for her in the end.)

Dave, I think they're living in the same world many people live in when they're that young, you know, the one in which they're invincible, correct on all counts, &c.

Tim and Rich, you're both right. My office may appear uninhabited because of all the desks--I should bring my camera Friday so you can see what I mean--but at the same time, the "clearing" I've created is obviously inhabited. There's no way a person can see my desk and not realize that it's someone's workspace. As for your concerns, Tim, as I said, I'm almost positive they were students, and since all I do on the computer in that office is use it to print stuff out, I'm not too worried about it. I did remove the student papers which, as someone who emailed me noted, is a particularly strange reaction. I'll just quote it:

1) Rampant sex fiends are apparently gaining entry into locked offices, where they proceed to do, well, what rampant sex fiends would do; and so

2) these same rampant sex fiends, disrespecting property as they do and exhibiting questionable moral character, would certainly (after all the sex was done) have an interest in gaining access to essays written by students who were busy writing essays instead of engaging in lewder activities, and would add insult to injury by making off with assorted papers they found in the office they so recently desecrated (perhaps because, what with all the rampant activity and all, they probably haven't had all that much time to craft essays of their own, and would think nothing of pilfering work from other students and doing god knows what unspeakable things with it, since they're not even students from your class), and yet

3) they would have no interest in pilfering your books, which are far more expensive and, I imagine, interesting.

The ironic part of this story is that on Tuesday I had a student tell me about her Sociology 69 class the day before. It's almost as if that conversation left its mark on the room.

[Rich Puchalsky]

"they would have no interest in pilfering your books, which are far more expensive and, I imagine, interesting"

The single most true sentence that Zelazny ever wrote was the one about how no one except your friends ever steal your books.

As for the student papers, well, there's a Joe Sacco comic book story about someone having his office inappropriately used for sex that I don't think I should even summarize further. But the papers might have been -- er -- marked up, let's say.

[Rey]

Seems to me like it kinda defeats the whole "fear of getting caught" thing to act all indignant and pretend like it was your right to be there. But then, I've always wondered how those "fear of getting caught" people would react if they were, in fact, caught.

[wayne]

The perfect moment for...a can of pepper spray!!

First shot in the eyes, second one quite a bit lower. I promise you they would never even consider trying this in someone's office again.

Maybe you might want to consider putting one of those live webcams in your office with a motion sensor and an open access to the school intranet so that anyone who decided to use your office after hours would be on public display.

Even more fun you could set up a remote to a tear gas cannister so about the time said couple was really getting their freak on the public could enjoy their reaction to getting tear-gassed and running out into the hall naked.

A little creative application of blurred-out spots might even get you $10,000 on America's Funniest Videos or something similar.

[smartalek]

as entertaining as Wayne's 10:19 scenario would be, you do realize that the "perpetrators" woulld then become "victims," would sue -- and would win big; would thus cost both the Prof and the University big-time; and would then become celebrities, raking in even more buckage for years to come. (As it were.)

[Quaker in a Basement]

My favorite moment:

"HALF-NAKED MALE: THIS IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT!"

No, this is harrassing people who are trying to have sex. Very different.

[Jane Dark]

Oh my goodness. Wow. I should be careful. Not that my office is unlocked, but that it's out of the way, and well-heated, and would probably be very comfortable.

Not that I really think this would happen...

Thanks for sharing.

[Caroline]

Oh my. This was the opening for a bad cable comedy. My lord, are they packing the stupid in college these days? Is there something in the water?

[fiat lux]

No, no, this is the best bit:

HALF-NAKED MALE: STOP HARASSING US YOU PERVERT OR I'LL REPORT YOU!

ME: (still holding door) You'll report me for your having sex in my office?

Given the undergrad's state at the time, I suppose a lack of rational thought was to be expected, but it's still funny.

[carla]

My favorite moment:

"HALF-NAKED MALE: THIS IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT!"

No, this is harrassing people who are trying to have sex. Very different.

Not to pick nits, but frankly the cranial energy it took to decide to have sex in someone's office isn't exactly a high voltage situation. Couple that (pun intended) with a blood flow moving away from the brain into the nether regions..and Kaufman is probably lucky to get THAT much.

This made my day, btw. LOL

[Mnemosyne]

I mean, it makes a good story, but my shockedness that this might happen is at a similar level to Capt. Renault's.

I don't think he meant "shocked" as in, "I'm astounded that undergraduates would think to have sex in my office!"

I think he means "shocked" as in, "Ohmigod, there are naked people having sex in my office!"

I seriously doubt that anyone, no matter how blase, could walk in on two strangers having sex in an unexpected place and NOT be shocked. It's like Miss Manners once said, "There's no point in planning what one would say in that situation, because you will always blurt out, 'Hey, what are you doing?' when it's perfectly obvious exactly what they're doing."

[ralph]

Sorry, the sex in the office I get. When you're ready to go, who cares who's office it is? You're thinking about sex, not robbery -- you're thinking you probably won't get disturbed. But the outrage upon being discovered takes the cake! I love that. Aside from due concern about locks and papers, come clean: You've been laughing about this all day, right? I mean, let's face it. It is absolutely a perfect human moment from all points of view. :-)

[The Little Womedievalist]

This is why I never enter my office without a spiked flail in hand.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

I certainly have, Ralph.

Spiked flail? Can I borrow it Friday? Just leave it next to the umbrellas.

[Homer Simpson]

Best blogpost ever....

[Pedro]

shocking! Cheesy varsity melodrama like the usual kawfmann scribblings ; and the comments feature the usual knowing cynicism-lite from the usual Biffs and Bunnies

[hugh jorgan]

Enough about the messy office already.......was she hot?

[RPM]

Did they return your swingline stapler?

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

"Pedro" of all the posts you've ever trolled, to consider this one another sign of my vapidity and lack of devotion to Our Lords Quine and Russell, well, frankly I'm impressed.

Hugh, I refuse to answer that question on principle . . . and because I didn't look. Really, I didn't. I'm serious.

[Don]

I think this is an allegory. Half naked man is the modern GOP.

The academic whose office is being ‘soiled’ as he stands passively in the doorway is the modern Democratic party. (When threated by half naked man with being 'reported' why didn't he respond by saying you can do that when campus police arrive as I've just called them?)

Of course, the weeping girl is the American people.

[otherpaul]

HALF-NAKED MALE: THIS IS SEXUAL HARASSMENT!

Maybe he meant it as a play for sympathy, as in, "We're playing out a sexual harassment office fantasy and we're at the best part."

[buck]

It could have been worse. They could have being going anal with unintended consequences...

[clone12]

BTW how are the TA situations at UCI now? I remember we were so shorthanded in TA's they made my pull double duty my last quarter there.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Not so good, clone12, as that pity party I threw for myself a couple weeks back indicates.

Don, brilliant, just brilliant.

[RSA]

If I'd been in that situation and had the presence of mind, I would have pulled out my cell phone and at least pretended to take a few pictures.

[La Femme Vickita]

Don, that's brilliant. It adds a whole new level of relevance to a hysterically funny story. I wonder if the girl dumped Naked Guy after they left.

[Last Dem In Norman]

"No, really! This guy never comes to work before 10. It'll be OK..."

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

When threated by half naked man with being 'reported' why didn't he respond by saying you can do that when campus police arrive as I've just called them?

The phone is in the office.

[Caleb]

Does this mean Thomas Wolfe is right? (He's probably kicking himself for not thinking of this for Charlotte Simmons. It would have been "fabulous," er, "awesome.")

I think this blog post calls for some alarmist editorials in the national press about how the modern American university has become a den of sex-crazed iniquity. Or maybe a spot on the local news. Seriously, have you called the local news? You could so be on TV for this.

[ximinez]

This is precisely why I bought a PDA with a built-in camera.

[dennisS]

Two more people in the "somebody else's office club." Welcome.

[Frank]

Gee,

I share your chagrin at their attitude.

Once, as a graduate student, I found a couple had broken into my lab. Upon finding them, I called out there were numerous toxic chemicals in there and that I hadn't cleaned up "for company". Shortly afterward, they quietly passed by my office (fully dressed and blushing) and mumbled an apology as they did.

But, wow. They threatened to report you?

Definitely time for a change of locks.

Frank

[W. Kiernan]

"Jesus, I can't wait to review the tape from the security camera! Have fun, you two!"

[bill jones]

this entire blog and play is lame beyond belief

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Glad to see all the hard work is appreciated, Mr. Jones. Or Charles. Or whatever your name is. Just out of curiosity, what is particularly lame about this blog?

[Gary]

"this entire blog and play is lame beyond belief"--bill jones

Look on the bright side, though--if you continue to read a good writer like Scott, you might learn how subject-verb agreement works.

[Don]

....what is particularly lame about this blog?

Oh Scott, don't feed the trolls. They must be ignored.

[mere mortal]

"I did really feel sorry for her in the end"

Heh. That statement alone was worth reading all the comments, and perhaps as entertaining as the whole orignal post.

The episode and the reaction are of the same character, especially given the young lady's reaction upon being caught. Put it this way, if you are the sort of male who would talk a woman into intercourse in a public place, you are probably also the sort of male who would try to convince anyone attempting to intervene that to do so would be improper, or even, as the guy's threats suggested, illegal (I'm not making a sexist assumption here, just using the information of the who took the active / passive roles in the confrontation to inform who might have taken similar roles in the coupling).

Yeah, people copulating in your office who suggested that they would contact some authority for the wrongful interruption. I think the winning move would be to move briskly to the phone and offer to contact campus security on their behalf. That would simultaneously resolve who is likely to be found at fault, and clear your office with the quickness.

[Das]

SEK's mere presence as a man, a figurehead of masculine oppression, calls out for acts of liberating defiance. He islucky that the students were, in reality, so politeand respectful compared to how they were fully entitled to act in order to throw off the chains of male oppression that SEK represents. SEK's brutality in this regard excuses - nay - condones and encourages the furtive grasping at freedom, no matter how fleeting...

[Zach]

As a student of Scott's, I have to say that he is the last person that deserves this. He's so anti sexual harassment in class, he's a walking human resources handbook on how not to sexually harass someone. If the ideology of a Gloria Allred met the will of an Anita Hill, it would represent the aversion Scott has to sexual harassment. How dare those kids. Yet at the same time...

I hope (if I prayed I would pray) that:

1. they never became fully aware of who Scott is and what courses he teaches

and...

2. one and/or both of them (preferably both) somehow, someway, enroll in a course he is teaching next quarter

...let the hilarity ensue.

P.S. Scott, please don't forget the punch and cookies for tomorrow's last day of class.

[Jen Rust]

Way to go, Scott! People having sex . . . at UCI! That alone is mind-boggling, and that's before you even get to the witty banter that you recount.

Congrats on all the Trackbacks too!!

[Andrew Clark]

My goodness. Apparently my education at UCI was sadly lacking . . . in my present profession, I would call for security so that all of us could point and laugh and take pictures for our report(s).

[Blar]

Don, are you suggesting that the girl should ditch the half-naked man and get with Scott? And Scott, is that why you think Don was being brilliant? If so, she must be hot, because otherwise this just wouldn't make any sense.

[Steve]

Paul wrote:Is this part of the homosexual agenda I keep hearing about? Now that gays get to come out of the closet, straights are expected to take their place? Jeez. Maybe the fundies are right.

Oh no! They've caught on! Abort the Agenda! Abort!

Spongebob will not be pleased to hear this...

[Michael Bérubé]

I think this is an allegory. Half naked man is the modern GOP.

The academic whose office is being ‘soiled’ as he stands passively in the doorway is the modern Democratic party.

Of course, the weeping girl is the American people.

Don wins. This is worthy of Brecht.

Or wait: maybe the weeping girl is the weak, and the half-naked guy is the tyranny of evil men, and Scott here was tryin' real hard to be the shepherd.

But seriously, Scott, you were infringing on their freedom of expression. Sensitivity training for you, my lad!

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Michael, I need more than sensitivity training . . . I need witness protection. At least according to some people, I'm the next conservative anti-academia meme:

Another link that’s made the rounds today, is the story of the prof who found students fucking in his office. What makes it funny, as opposed to your run-of-the-mill public fuck story that we’ve all become so jaded to, is the sense of outrage on the part of the copulators that the prof would intrude on such shenanigans. I predict in a year or two, the story will be embellished into one of those conservative urban legends to fuel culture war outrage. The prof will have been reprimanded, and the student’s will have been awarded a large sum of a money from a runaway jury after another frivolous lawsuit makes a mockery of our legal system. “Political Correctness Run Amok” as Jeff G. might say, as if PC liberals were responsible for every silly thing that happens in the world.

[me2i81]

I remember a "football player and woman fucking in the driveway" incident at my frathouse at Cal...our resident libertarian-who-published-a-newsletter told them he was trying to study, and would they please do it somewhere else. Football player came back later with his buddies to avenge the affront, fortunately "the brothers" came back at the right time from a beer run, and laughed at the story and gave everyone involved a beer, so nobody busted anyone's head and everyone laughed it off--it was one of those happy endings you get in sitcoms. I should write a treatment.

[Colin]

I laughed. Out loud. And linked to it.

[Chris C]

The thing I find hilarious is that he threatened to report you. I can't help admiring the sheer chutzpah of that. I mean, he could at least have invited you to join in, since it was your office...

[The Liberal Avenger]

I miss college!

[Monoglot]

This is the whole problem with working in an elementary school.

It may be time to move into the wild world of secondary education, with an eye on post-secondary....

[Jonathan Dresner]

The downside to having my office in a new building is that nobody else has a key. Except the cleaning and security staff.... do you think great piles of unfiled papers are a deterrent mess or a nice padded surface?

[Russell Arben Fox]

If I get a call-back about the position at Irvine, I'm definitely going to work this into my job talk.

[Woody McStiffie]

where's your office located? my girlfriend and i are looking for a place to bone. i hear your accomodations are three star.

funny, funny stuff.

[Conrad]

It appears to me that you failed in your duty as an educator in this case. Surely, these students entered a professor's office in order that they might be enlightened by his long experience in the matter at hand. Instead of berating them, you should have offered a critique of their technique and assigned a grade when they were done.

[DHN]

All of this reminds me of a legendary tale from graduate school, in which several couples from a previous cohort allegedly broke into the department chair's office, engaged in a ménage à quatre on the desk, and left some kind of late-1980s/early 1990s postmodern manifesto that explained their acts in characteristically abstruse fashion.

[matt]

this is deliciously close to the format of my non-plays; all you need is a talking condom...

[SGT Jeff (IRR)]

Well, you just got linked by Althouse, can an Instalanche be far behind? Heh.

[Josette]

conrad wins.

[bitchphd]

Whatever happened to the time-honored tradition of sex in the stacks?

[Big Worm]

There was a relatively well-substantiated (as far as these things go) rumor at my law school that one professor caught two other professors in flagrante delicto on his desk. And one of the guilty parties had just been named assistant dean.

[Ed Minchau]

How it should have gone:

ME: Do do do do WHOA!

HALF-NAKED COUPLE IN MY OFFICE: GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!

ME: What?

HALF-NAKED FEMALE: DON'T YOU KNOCK? (putting shirt back on)

ME: Before I come into my office?

HALF-NAKED MALE: GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! (buttoning pants)

ME: This is my office. YOU get the fuck out of here. She can stay.

[quietann]

ohmyg-d... I first read this in another forum... I agree with the commenter who was simply shocked that *anyone* at UCI has sex anywhere on campus, ever, much less in someone else's office! That place is the most soul-draining university ever, and anyone who still has a libido is likely to be very, very frustrated. And most of the students seem to be evangelical Christians, who are (supposedly) saving themselves for marriage anyway...

(that said, however, I got my Ph.D. there, in Social Ecology, about 10 years ago, and did, in fact, have sex in one of the old SE research labs, one of the ones with a one-way-mirror. On the mirrored side, unfortunately, rather than the windowed side. A couple of my grad student peers found out way, way more than they needed to know about me, that night...)

[Matt T.]

I had sex in a professor's office once. Difference is, she (the professor) was cool with it.

[Omri]

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Over.

[Joshua O'Madadhain]

Thanks to this story, a friend at Berkeley has expressed her jealousy for the fact that I am at UCI, source of such cool stories, if on the other side of campus. (I find this deliciously ironic, personally.)

I might even have to check out the next edition of the student-published newspaper to see whether this made it in. :)

[chuk]

wow, soci 69: sociology of sexuality. that made my night.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Joshua, it just might. Since I teach intro. to literary journalism, the paper's staffed almost entirely by current or former students of mine.

[Strider]

The only thing that could have made that more funny is if you'd had a camera on you. "Hey! Are you taking PICTURES????" "What, I can't take pictures in my private office?"

[Perica]

The occurence doesn't surprise me Scott- I have saw a couple once going at it at on the top floor of Humanities Hall a couple of years ago- I actually saw them from the top floor of KH... in fact, I think I was going to visit you that day for office hours. Wow.

[Jim A.]

It's just a case of confusion: they didn't KNOW that your office wasn't intended for that. I think that you need a sign on your office door. Something with little pictographs, a big red slashcircle, and a legend SEX IN MY OFFICE PROHIBITED.

[academic coach]

lol. great way to start the morning. woke me right up.

[Ontario Emperor]

Got here from Da Goddess. Simple solution - if it's an undergraduate college, just write the couple's parents and inform them that they're trespassing. Better yet, send pictures.

[Sarah Kaufman]

hey, since I'm going to college in the fall, is this something that happens at LSU as well? Really, what was wrong with you? Just because it was important to meet students in your office.... You could have told the two busy in your office that you would "share" the space. You would then be able to provide your students will a really well rounded education. I hear it is important for graduation. By the way if you had a cell phone you could have called for help and you would not be in a mess.

[*lynne*]

heyya,
found u via Samantha Burn's link to this article.
totally made my day :-)
*lynne*

[Von]

Awesome post. Sounds like a student's sense of entitlement gone to the very extreme. (I was going to address the "we normally lock our doors for that purpose" topic, but I see that it's too late). Thank goodness UCI didn't accept me as a grad student/TA, I don't think I could have handled spoiled brats with the grace that you did.

There's a problem with the Sexual Harassment Police representative claiming that they were just wondering whether you wanted to file a claim. You obviously didn't contact the Sexual Harassment Police. If Mr. or Ms. Office Party contacted the Sexual Harassment Police, presumably they did so to accuse you rather than themselves. Accordingly, the Sexual Harassment Police would onl