Our cabin organizer said rooms were first come, first served this year. So I finally believed her.

My friend group does the same long lake weekend every summer. There are ten of us, one rental house, and every year the room situation somehow turns into a weird little monarchy.

For the last four years, my wife and I have always ended up in the downstairs bunk room next to the washer and dryer. Nobody ever officially assigns it to us. It just sort of happens because we are "low maintenance" and because our friend Melissa's younger sister always gets the upstairs queen room with the little private bathroom, even when she rolls in hours after everyone else.

Last year I asked in the group chat if we could just assign rooms ahead of time so nobody had to do the fake polite dance on arrival. Melissa got annoyed and said room drama only exists because people make it dramatic.

This year, three days before the trip, she sent a message that said, "I am not doing room assignments. We are all adults. Get there, pick a room, and please stop acting like I run a hotel."

Great. Crystal clear.

My wife and I changed our departure time, left before dawn, got there first, and took the upstairs queen. We unpaked, put groceries away, and went down to the dock.

About two hours later Melissa's sister arrived, walked upstairs, and came back down looking like I had stolen her car. Melissa pulled me aside and said, very tight, "You know Emma always gets that room."

I said I knew Emma usually got that room. I also knew Melissa had very specifically said first come, first served. She said I was being actaully insane if I was going to pretend I did not understand the tradition. I pulled up the text and asked which part I had misunderstood.

There was a whole tense whisper fight in the kitchen. At one point Melissa asked if we would "just be cool" and switch. I said no, mostly because I have been being cool about it for four summers.

The funniest part is that next year, without a shred of irony, Melissa sent out a shared spreadsheet with assigned rooms by name.

So yes, I followed the rules. The real issue is that this was the first year I followed the written rules instead of the secret ones.