Midway through August the envelope can be found creeping its way from the mailbox to your kitchen table. You can try to run. You can try to hide. But it will find you. No, it’s not your tuition bill; it’s your roommate assignment. In some ways it is just as scary. In other ways it is scarier. Before you move to college there’s always that one guy who feels it’s necessary to tell you about his friend’s sister’s ex-boyfriend who had this roommate who filmed and sold homemade pornography out of their dorm room. Maybe its true, maybe its not, but regardless it freaks you out.
If you’re lucky, you move into your dorm, end up with a really cool roommate, or at least a tolerable one, and never think about the phantom pornographer again. If you’re not so lucky … well, there’s always the hope a single will open up down the hall. In the mean time, keep this article nearby, because I guarantee you that I am the keeper of the mother of all bad roommate stories. Prepare to feel better about your situation.
It was my freshman year, her sophomore. She seemed like a nice girl. She invited me to dinner with her and her friends, helped me find my classes, and told me which take-out places were the best. The first major oddity I recall occurred around Halloween. My mom sent up a package with two pumpkin bins filled with candy for my roommate and I. She ate the candy and offered me the pumpkin bin back, explaining that she wasn’t really a fan of pumpkins. I was a little taken aback by this, but, being the easygoing girl that I am, I figured this was just one of those weird things, probably due to a difference in upbringing.
Similar occurrences, I reasoned, were results of a difference in upbringing were her comments that she was looking forward to having children so she could beat them, and her consumption of a vitamin drink which she told me was composed mainly of dirt, bird spit, and chicken essence. Trying to take an interest in her culture I asked her which part of the chicken was the essence. She didn’t know. She was kind enough to offer me some, but much like pumpkins weren’t her thing, chicken essence isn’t really mine.
Her boyfriend would come over fairly often, and she would sit on the bed on top of him and pluck out his moustache hairs with tweezers. Sometimes he would sleep over. They talked to each other in their sleep in Cantonese. She addressed him using the Cantonese word for husband. Strangely it seemed to freak me out more than it did him. I began to learn the lyrics to songs in Taiwanese, since that was all she ever listened to, at top volume. I hoped I wasn’t saying anything obscene.
For the most part we were getting along fairly well despite these differences. Then things got interesting. It must have been nearing the mid-year point when I awoke from a deep sleep, blinded by every light in the room flickering on at 4:00 a.m. She was sitting on her bed, clothes on, wide-awake. She explained she’d come back to our room because she and her boyfriend had had a fight. She asked if I wanted to play Scrabble. Now I’m as big a Scrabble fan as the next guy, but at 4:00 a.m. I figure I’d be lucky if I could manage to spell a two-letter word.
This too I brushed off, as simply a desperate cry for someone to talk to in a time of need. I continued to brush off similar occurrences throughout the year, and had myself so jaded I decided to spend another year as her roommate. If you thought the freshman year stories were good, you’ll love this one, because nothing can top “the bird”. Remember the story of the guy’s friend’s sister’s ex-boyfriend’s roommate? Well I figure everyone within six degrees of me will be telling this one for a long time.
I was walking to class one morning and laying out on the walkway was a bird that had crashed into one of the window and died. As one generally does with road kill, I thought, “Oh, how sad,” and continued on my way. I got back to my room that afternoon and my roommate was sitting at her desk leaning over something with interest. Hearing the door she turned around and beckoned me over. “Isn’t this cool?” Lying on her desk was none other than the bloody, dead bird. She examined it, rolling its head from side to side and stretching out its wings in awe. I had no idea what to do. I was in shock. Throughout my previous 18 years I’d learned all sorts of rules of etiquette, but what on earth do you do when someone brings a dead animal into your room?
I think I’ve started to block the event out of my mind, but I remember asking her what she was going to do with it (she wanted to stuff it and keep it as a “pet”) and telling her that it was going to rot and start smelling. Long story short, the bird took up residence in her refrigerator for an indefinite period of time. One day a while later I asked about it, and she told me it had started to decompose so she’d gotten rid of it. Then someone from above smiled down upon me: she moved out a few weeks later. So next time your roommate borrows and stains your favorite shirt, or eats the last of your cookies, remember the bird. You’ll be feeling better in no time.
Stacy Kasdin is a Collegian columnist.
