The Twenty-One Year Old Freshman

When I was twenty-one years old and still living at home, I had this crazy idea that it would be fun to live in a dorm while I went to college.(And also convenient, since I didn't have a car). I had gone to community college part-time a previous semester, getting a ride with a friend who was going to the same school. But I badly wanted to be on my own, so living on campus seemed like a good plan. I had floated along since graduating from high school, working part-time on and off and taking some college classes, yet still hadn't taken enough yet to be considered a sophomore. So when I started living at the dorm and taking classes full time, I was a freshman. It was a four year college, and I planned on graduating there. Before I left home to live on campus, my parents threw a"'dorm shower" for me and invited some friends and family. They gave me a mini coffee pot, coffee cups, a night shirt and other household items like laundry detergent. I know that sounds like a weird present, but if you have to do your laundry at the dorm laundromat, a good detergent is a must. The dorm laundry basement also had a microwave which was handy for that other college staple, microwave popcorn.

I had a roommate named Kristy (a computer science major) who like to listen to country and gospel music. She was nice but didn't speak to me in the mornings. She had informed me when I first met her that she was not a morning person. She had a friend Lori who lived in some apartments nearby. Lori was going to nursing school at the college and had a baby daughter named Chelsea. She was not married and lived alone, and I admired her pursuing a difficult degree while raising a child. Kristy spent a few nights a week going to Lori's and invited me along often. I have to admit Kristy and I got along well even though we both had our eccentricities. We weren't that much alike and that would seem to cause friction but it didn't. Kristy was a senior and she was my age and past any desire to "party." I, on the other hand, would go out every chance I got. If Kristy went to Walmart I wanted to go too. I went to Lori's with her alot but I was starting to feel like a third wheel. Kristy also went home about every other weekend. There was LaRae who lived across the hall and pined for her boyfriend who was going to another school, (they later broke up)- but since she went home a lot on the weekends as well, I felt somewhat alone at first.

A few weeks after I started school I met Elsie, a friend of Lori's. She lived at the dorm with her roommate , Carrie. Elsie had short dark curly hair and a kewpie doll face. Carrie looked and sounded like Peppermint Patty. I was feeling somewhat lost those first few weeks and I was glad to have them as friends. Our friendship morphed into a real sisterhood. There were a lot of late night girl talks and pizza deliveries. Even though most people in the dorm ate meals in the cafeteria during the week, on the weekends you were mostly on your own. That added up to a lot of pizza calls (and extra pounds, lol.) I also found some friends I knew from high school who had joined some clubs on campus. After weeks of looking for a job I found one organizing menus at the campus restaurant. My boss's name was Debbie. She had red fluffy hair and widely spaced teeth and looked like a middle-aged Little Orphan Annie. She was jolly as was my other boss, Willie, whose office I worked in. He called me "Heartthrob." There was no funny business involved though. He was just a flirty person, and I worked well with he and Debbie. One day I was looking for something in the office cupboard and I knocked over a huge bottle of red wine vinegar. It hit the floor and broken glass and vinegar were everywhere. Though I cleaned up all the glass and vinegar, I couldn't get rid of the smell. When Willie came in the office he noticed the smell and I confessed what happened. He rollicked with laughter, thinking it silly that I was scared to tell him.(I had just started the job). About one night a week the restaurant workers (including me) had to work the buffets they had in the campus ballroom. I had to serve food and beverages, and I was terrible at it. I was not good at serving things like ice tea. I often overpoured and one time, some of the tea went on a lady's purse. Food service is not my bag, baby.

As far as dating went, it was slim pickings. Most of the desirable guys were taken and the ones that weren't were swarmed over like a cinnamon roll at an ant's picnic. Besides, I was older than most of the girls at the dorm. I had a few dates with this guy that a friend had fixed me up with and though he was nice, it just didn't click. I do remember seeing the movie "Mystic Pizza" with him. It was the first time I had seen Julia Roberts in a movie and I thought she was so pretty. The nerdy guys really stood out, though. A guy named Monroe, who was like King of the Nerds, came to the dances that we had outside on campus and danced like a wiggle-worm. I never made fun of him but he stood out in his goofiness. He was part of the eccentric mix of people that surrounded me. My life had become a rhythm of breakfast in the cafeteria with one of my friends, work, a movie on the weekend sometimes with Kristy, Elsie or Carrie, and classes that I liked(I was a journalism major.)

But the next semester I couldn't afford to live on campus and the part-time job I had the semester before hadn't paid that well. I was back to square one again. I moved back home and got a ride to the college with the sister of a friend who was going there. One day when I got mixed up about where I was supposed to meet the girl I was riding with-(my fault, but that is another story) I spent the night on the floor of Carrie and Elsie's dorm. It was like old times again.

The last I heard from Elsie or Carrie was over fifteen years ago. Elsie was living in an apartment with a friend she had met on campus named Michelle. Carrie had gotten married. Elsie was going to school to become a teacher. I wonder if she is a teacher now or if she decided to do something else. I wonder if Carrie is still married, and how Kristy's computer science degree mapped out her future. I never finished school. I had planned to later, but fate stepped in with other plans. I do not regret it though. I learned so many life lessons living on campus, and I will never forget them. It was the experience of a lifetime.