I think I'll chronicle my ridiculous experiences living "on my own" (i.e. away from the parental units).
I think my mom prepared me for living on my own as best she could. I know how to cook (I just don't like to), I know how to do laundry/iron (skills I have improved upon thanks to required wardrobe crew assignments in college), I know how to balance a checkbook (although this skill would very soon become obsolete with online/mobile phone banking), and I know how to clean up after myself (again, not something I like to do). That being said, preparing for doing things on your own is a whole different ball game than actually figuring life out on your own.
I studied Theatre Arts at the University of Northern Colorado (the other UNC) in Greeley, affectionately (or not)known as "G-Town". It's about 90 minutes (driving while mostly obeying designated speed limit signs) northwest of Denver. The "Powers That Be" in the housing department must have thought it would be hilarious to put two freshman girls together who shared the same name and have them live across the hall from 2 guys named Bryan/Brian. Lazy-ass bastards. (In housing department's defense, we remained roommates for all four years of college and I was in her wedding, but still...lazy.) We lived on the 2nd floor of a T-shaped dorm building called Wiebking (web-king) Hall. It had 3 floors plus a basement where the laundry room, common room, kitchen, and the kids who must have pissed off someone lived. The 3rd floor was the all-girls floor aka "The Nunnery." The 2nd floor was generally where all of the performing arts majors lived. Our R.A was a very straightlaced, overbearing double business major whom we shall call Lindsey (mostly because that was her name). Lindsey sounds like the perfect resident advisor for a bunch of artsy kids who've just been given more freedom/less responsibility than any of them have ever had (or will probably ever have) in their lives, huh? Were we loud? Yes. Were we obnoxious? Definitely. Were we overdramatic? Der. Did she treat us like people? Nope. From day 1 she had a little power trip and expected us to all love her without trying to get to know any of us personally, you know...as people. And yet, she could never understand why none of us respected her. And as far as I could tell, she never "advised" us on much of anything...except what a bitch she could be.
Dorm life was an adjustment but nothing too alarming happened, except for the night the alcoholic kid down the hall got drunk and decided to take a shower at 2am only to pass out in the boys' shower in such a way that his ass blocked the drain and he flooded the second floor hallway. Yeah, he and his drunk drain-blocking-ass got expelled.
Or the time the dumbass bitchy girl down the (other) hall tried to hang a jacket on the sprinkler head (you know, the one that sprays nasty-ass flame-dousing liquid in the event of a fire or it being tampered with) and broke it and thousands of gallons of water flooded her room, 1/3 of the second floor, the 1st floor, and the basement. Yeah, her ass got sued.
Yup, just a typical college freshman year living in the dorm.
Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh man. How I DON'T miss the dorms.
ReplyDeleteI never had any fun stories like that, just a bunch of awkward honors kids and an awkward RA.
Three years later I see my RA at the bar. Talk about awkward interactions. We kept trying to hug me.