A See of Green

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My sisters are both returning to college this weekend. I am envious. To be that carefree in such an awesome learning environment again, oh what I wouldn’t give. As long as I could bring my current level of wisdom with me, of course. My friend Diane mentioned today her nephew is also starting college this year. He has called home already with stories of his new roommates. She related one of his stories to me, shook her head, and said the college roommate experience is something we all have to go through.

Isn’t that the truth? And I went through my fair share of roommate experiences. During the course of my time at college I had four different roommates. Each of them provided me with memories. Some sweet, some bitter. They each had their own eccentricities. Some good, some not. First there was the High School Princess. After her came the tortured artist. Next was the townie. And finally, thank goodness, was the friend.

Ah the High School Princess. What a treat she was. Freshman year move-in day started at noon. I arrived at our dorm room with my dad, grandma and aunt and all my worldly possessions (at least what would fit in a footlocker and a duffle bag) in tow at about 12:20pm. By that time she had already hung three, not one or even two but THREE, two foot by three foot collages of pictures of her and all her high school friends on the walls of our room. There were homecoming pictures and hanging out pictures and prom pictures. There was EIGHTEEN SQUARE FEET of pictures. Shortly after I began moving my things into the room two girls appeared in the doorway. Oh look, there you both are in her pictures. It turned out that there were three of them from the same high school on our floor. They were all friends. My roomie was the odd man out. The other two girls were rooming together at the end of the hall. How’s this for irony… both their names were Amy. By the end of the first semester we couldn’t stand each other any more. I was tired of hearing how proud she was that her father’s life insurance was paying her way through college. She couldn’t understand that I was a night owl. I heard there was an opening on another floor and I grabbed it.

And that’s how I met Anna in Wonderland. The tortured artist. People thought it was strange that I was an English major at an engineering school. They were really confused by the art major. Poor Anna. She was the spoiled youngest daughter of a wealthy Greek family from Chicago. She lived to draw; to create. She did not understand why attending class every couple of weeks was affecting her GPA. At one point in the semester, she left to spend three weeks in Greece with her grandmother. Laundry was also beyond her, but all she owned was black. You mostly couldn’t tell what was clean or dirty. When it came time to make living arrangements for the next year she admitted that she would not be back.

Enter the townie. Her mom worked at the university so she was going to school for free. Cool. I thought it was neat that she had dual citizenship, having been born in England while her dad was in the service. She and I had actually been friends when I lived with the HSP. I have almost no recollection of rooming with her. I spent most my time one floor up with a group of other friends. I do remember a couple occasions. Many were group outings. The one memory that sticks out most is the one where she had a reaction to some cough medicine she had taken and I found her collapsed on the bathroom floor. Apparently, something happened during this time that really ticked her off though because she has ignored my friend request on FaceBook not once but twice. The first was when I first signed up for my account. I found her name along with many others from college. The second was shortly after I saw she had posted a picture of a mutual friend on FB. When I looked at the picture I saw it was a picture of ME with the mutual friend. I accompanied that request with a message. It was something along the lines of ‘you can post a picture of me on the internet, but you won’t accept my friend request? Really?’ She didn’t accept that request either. Huh. Go figure.

The townie rented a house the next year with some other girls. And finally there was Nicole. My friend. The roommate I shared common interests with. The roommate I brought home on breaks. It was fun teaching her to get around in an area where you did not have to carry a full sized map to find your way. “It’s easy. They’re numeric; they go in order. Remember the avenues go east and west, the streets go north and south, and if you hit the river you went too far!” The friend I went on adventures with. We are not very good about keeping in touch. We do chat now and then. I wish she lived closer.

My sisters have each had interesting roommate adventures too. Ali’s only wish for Christmas one year was Febreze. <whole body shudder> As school starts back and new roommates are encountered all across the country, I have to admit really I’m glad I am not going through that again.