COLLEGE DORMS
The inventor of dormitories... let's find him, make him
pay for the travesties he's visited on America's youth, and force him to listen
to Matchbox 20. Can't you see him designing these hellish stacks of humanity
many years ago? From the sidewalk he raised his hands triumphantly and said, "It
shall be like the projects with less violence and more marijuana!" He then took
lumber and Elmer's Paste, as it is often called, to create these pet carrier
sized rooms that we live in.
You wanna know why people from the projects hardly ever go to college? It's
because they don't want to leave their lush surroundings.
The actual term dormitory is of course derived from the Latin term for sleep,
which is appropriate because that is all you have space to do.
You have to do it standing up in the bathroom sink but it can be done. The
luckier students have space to scratch their asses but the windows have to be
open and their roommates have to be gone for the weekend.
When you go home the closets even feel like a gymnasium, and you can romp around
in the bathroom like a horny antelope.
I can't imagine the kids who brought everything they own to the dorm. I brought
like a condom and a sock. Next semester I hope to have a towel and the other
sock. I also need a new condom. Forget having space to sleep. Who sleeps anyway?
Nobody on my campus. I think it's a rule.
This one kid tried but no one knows what happened to him. Let's just say his
floor mates never saw him awake again. I feel like I'm a member of the national
insomnia coalition.
Our agenda involves a lot of Frappucino and staring at the test pattern on TV.
It's like this strange pseudo vampire lifestyle. Did you know that if you stay
up late enough they play the Tonight Show over again and it still isn't funny?
No sleep really fucks with your eating habits too. Every night at 2 in the
morning you get as hungry as a Bosnian and you have to go to the vending machine
to watch the one bagel spin in the carousel of salmonella.
People have White Zombie playing until 5 AM, which to me really encompasses my
mood at 5 AM. I could be listening to Kenny G and it would seem hard-core at 5
in the morning. It doesn't matter because you still can't get an open clothes
drier minutes before sunrise. There's like this one chick whose always tying up
an entire drier with like one pair of panties. I let it slide because it gives
me an opportunity to watch hypnotically tumbling panties. The worst is when she
turns out to be morbidly obese and you have to vomit in your laundry basket. Not
that the dryers work anyway. I could fart on my laundry and get it drier than
the converted toaster ovens that the university supplies.. Dry jeans? Forget
about it. I had to convert mine to a deep-sea wet suit.
So what if you want to leave the dorm? Get ready for a chore. You'll need keys,
ID, bag, books, a map, an umbrella, sun glasses, insulin, a snake bite kit,
mace, a pack mule, and an Algonquin Indian translator (Miami students you know
what that's all about). Then you have to go walking through the building kissing
the asses of all the dweebs you live with and holding the door for anyone in the
same county. What's with the door holding policy? Like opening a door requires a
spotter.
If you've got arms, a coordinated foot, or useful nub, open your own God damn
door.
No matter where you go you have to use these gerbil-on-a-wheel elevators. I
could climb up the side of the building with a corpse tied to my johnson in less
time than it takes for the door to close. Then you have to fucking march for
miles from your dorm which is conveniently placed on fucking opposite side of
the campus from any building that
is fucking remotely important. People on roller blades I accept, people on bikes
I have urges to clothesline but tolerate, but people on skateboards have a value
just below medically retarded nazis. It must be explained to them that
skateboards were cool when we were 11 and even then they weren't that cool.
Where are you headed? Probably to get something to eat at the dining hall. The
only dish they haven't fucked up is Lucky Charms. I think the university
supplies them with a blender and unlimited horse meat mixed with some retired
circus animals. The key to making the menu fresh and
exciting is the food coloring. The charming and buck-toothed lunch ladies
proudly announce, "Yesterday we had chicken nuggets and today we present to you
blue chicken chunks that are totally unrelated to the nugget dish we served you
just yesterday. We are serious, they have nothing to do with each other. I stake
my hair net on it. You can have extra blue in yours.."
And the ladies (who really seem to love livin in the exciting scooping career)
refuse to serve more than what fits on a toothpick. You can't just ask for a
large portion, you have to ask for "more than the offensive line could consume
this semester." Then you get a second
blue nugget. Remember how excited the potato bar got you the first week? Now the
potato bar makes you homicidal. (What are bacon flavored bits made of?)
Then you get to come home to your room. Mine is called a suite, which is a
pretty cruel manipulation of the English language. I get to spend time with the
closet case that the boarding office apparently found compatible with me. He's
like Chewbacca's considerably less attractive estranged midget cousin. A wookie
also has better control of the English language. My roommate is another rant all
together. Most people get one of two kinds of roommates, the one who sharpens
knives while he watches you sleep (mine), and the one who asks you what it's
like to go outside(also mine). My suite mates next door live an intensely
Rastafarian lifestyle. In an attempt to put Cheech and Chong to shame, their
bong is a centerpiece of the room that they clean with wadded textbook pages.
They smoke to Bob Marley at 5 AM on Wednesday nights which is a little too
hardcore but you have to love their dedication to the sport.
End your dorm day by hopping in the shower. It's as big as a
tupperware container. It has 3 temperatures, fucking hot, really fucking hot,
and nuclear. Whenever somebody flushes a toilet on the campus the temperature
goes to skin removal levels and I go blind for a few minutes. I swear it is
connected to every toilet in the county. My brother flushed the toilet at home
last week and I called him to tell him to be a little more considerate. The
bathroom is as clean as any fast food restaurant urinal cake and after the
average college student cleans the shitter with a bottle of Vodka it's as clean
as any bus station. I've given up
on cleaning the bathroom and I'm disinfecting myself. A quick spray down with
Lysol Direct and my body is fresh and repellent to several bacteria.
Bottom line. Turn up the music and try to get high off the fumes coming from
under the bathroom door because they never share. The "best days of your life"
will be over soon.
Started on 2-8-99 @ Montana State University.