>>> The Rollercoaster of Drama
By staff writer Simonne Cullen

September 10, 2006


Current mini-fridges are very stylish looking with their sleek steel color, or bright pinkish tones for those who have lives so empty they desire their appliances to match their bed sheets. Then there are the early fridges that can never hold half a gallon of milk. So the milk has to go into that big communal fridge some dorms have on every floor. And everyone steals from it. I’m guilty of stealing milk. Sometime people write, “I spit on my food” to ward off thieves, but when people need milk for their cereal it should say, “I jerked off into this container.” And you’d still pour it all over your Count Chocula.

The large communal fridges are also used for storing products so valuable they require serious guarding. My roommates and I once made over 500 Jello shots. After storing them in every mini-fridge we could, we still had 300 left. It was either the communal fridge or drinking lukewarm-flavored vodka. So we paid the Asian girl doing math in the lounge to guard them.

We invited her to the party too. But only because she really wanted to figure out everyone’s blood alcohol level after the first 10 shots on her new calculator.

“You never know what to do with a friend who capitalizes off of other people’s goods. Maybe just tattoo ‘Trophy Wife' while she’s passed out.”

Turning your tub into a fridge is a great idea in a hotel, but not so much in your room (broken glass in the tub the next morning = not fun). Actually having a tub-bar is only a good idea in a house with two or more bathrooms. Call me old-fashioned, but I just don’t find it kosher to take a big shit next to the tub filled with Coors Light that you’re going to drink after you wipe your ass. Just a rule of thumb: Don’t shit where you drink!

My roommates are 17 and 20. That’s right, both can’t drink, only one can buy cigarettes. And this is the first time away from home for the both of them. Therefore I have been dubbed the Mother Hen of the studio apartment we live in. And I only have one rule: all cocks must be kept out of the hen house. Cocks meaning the two straight guys on campus, and the hen house meaning their poo-na-nies. And then I had to review exactly what a poo-na-ny was to the roommate born in 1988.

The other day the three of us went shopping. We passed the baked goods section and the older of my two underage roomies, Leslie, asked me if she could buy a tub full of chocolate frosting. Like I was going to tell her, “No, it’s bad for you. Put it back and go get a box of Saltines, I have a coupon for 30 cents off.” I responded with, “Yeah let’s get some cookie dough too. Perhaps if there’s enough time we can cover the cookie dough in frosting and stick it all in a Twinkie.” She looked at me with tears in her eyes, and it was then that I think she finally realized she was an adult—someone who could come home and watch pay-per-view porn and eat chocolate frosting off her own body if she really wanted to. Of course, she’d never do it, but it’s the thought that counts.

It’s not like I’m not learning new things from my roommates. Tiffany taught me how to make scrambled eggs in the microwave. Throw in a sausage and a frozen biscuit and you’ve got your own Egg McMuffin sandwich. Sure the apartment will stink like a sorority girl’s shoe closet, but gas prices are outrageous, the McDonald’s here doesn’t have a drive-thru, and frankly, it just isn’t worth it. Sorry Ronald, you’ve been replaced by a 17-year old girl. How very Hollywood of me.

I’ve always had a problem with cookies. Sharing my food has never been a problem, but don’t touch my cookies. On time a friend of mine got generous with my cookies and distributed them without my consent. Which wouldn’t have been a dig deal if she hadn’t also distributed half of my booze into her tummy as well. You never really know what to do with a friend like that—the one who capitalizes off of other people’s goods. Maybe just get her drunk and tattoo “Trophy Wife” while she’s passed out. Eccentric I know, but if I can save just one small town college girl’s cookies, I know it would make all the difference.

Another time I brought those almond cookies from China Town. A hundred cookies for 7 bucks. Amazing cookies. I left them on a shelf, and even though my roommates knew the cookie rule, they somehow thought it didn’t apply to them. Upon return from work I discovered that the entire box has been consumed. There were my roommates, who had clearly been smoking an herbal glaucoma remedy, passed out on the couch in an MSG coma, with the movie Fantasia blasting in the background.

On a completely unrelated note, guys, do you remember how the first Fantasia film had nudity in it, but you didn’t know if you were allowed to be attracted to it because the boobs belonged to a woman who was part horse? Awkward.

We never locked our doors at Lawrence and consequently we’d wake up in the morning and find random people had consumed our cheese products in the middle of the night. Party Pete consumed almost three quarter pounds of cubed cheese one time. He offered to pay for it the next day, and we didn’t accept it. We figured anyone who ate that much cheese and lived to tell the tail should be given a medal, or at least be considered a tax write-off.

Party Pete was infamous for stealing people’s food. One Thursday morning our neighbor Rozi came in dangling our rice cakes and said, “Umm, do these apple cinnamon things belong to you?” And then he proceeded to rattle off a spiel like he had conducted his own private investigation. “We discovered the chick food this morning. After seven minutes of serious consideration, we discovered that Party Pete was the obvious culprit. We believe he came in here prior to bar time and left the scene after he found a couple of food items. By the way, do you know anything about cheese? There was an empty bag near our couch this morning, and what looked like the inside of a cow within a three foot radius of our toilet. If you have any further information let us know. Thank you.”

Guess Party Pete doesn’t deserve that medal after all.

Unrationalisms

Why does iTunes charge you 99 cents for a song, but Cingular charges you $2.50 for 13 seconds of a song as your ringtone? And when you lose your phone, the company doesn’t compensate you for your ringtones! I had $25 worth of ringtones on my phone when it broke. I expect all of them back, including such classics as “Don’t Cha,” “In Da Club,” and the accidental purchase of “Life is a Highway.”

Is everyone’s iPod breaking down on them? It seems that anyone who purchased one two years ago has had to buy a new one by now. And even though the trade-in/student discount is a real help, that’s still 300 bucks you have to drop—which is really 300 bucks worth of microwaved scrambled eggs you won’t be eating for the next month and half.

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