Dorms, dorms, dorms… Do you love them? Do you hate them? Do you just deal with them?  Well, my freshman year I lived in a madhouse.  I mean it was fun, yes, but man was I glad to get out of there!  My roommate and I were like peas in a pod, but our surrounding world left much to be desired.  I lived on a floor with:

1) what seemed like half the football team (Sunday Nights OMG!!!!)

2) next door to a wrestler and his outrageously political cousin who by the way decided to get a subwoofer in the middle of the year and place it against paper thin walls

3) down the hall from two fools who claimed that racism didn’t exist and paraded Bushness all over the floor

4) this annoyingly loud girl who made “Bitch” her catchphrase of the year

5) this really cute football player, who was made really ugly by the cloud of marijuana smoke that followed him

6)and to top it all off, my RA was definitley louder than everyone on the floor.  I mean what are quiet hours?

Well, I learned a lot that year, but the biggest lesson was this: people are crazy, speakers can get mad loud without exploding, and all these personalities are totally amplified when they’re drunk, but if it makes for good college memories stick it out because never again in life will you have these opportunities again.

Much love forever,

Danie l. e.

Dearest roommates,

Listen. I’m really worried about you guys. By the amount of repulsive, dirty dishes that is eternally stacked in our kitchen sink, I can tell something is wrong. The fact that I’m the only one out of the four girls that live here who has the time to scrub clean the grimey forks and greasy, Ramen-stained pans makes me think that you are seriously overwhelmed. You’re too preoccupied with homework to clean one single dish, and that is excruciatingly concerning.

By the look of the leaning tower of post pizza-eating plates, you guys are well over-booked. You know you have too much on your plate (metaphorically; I’m talking about schoolwork, not the aforementioned serving of Giordano’s) when you aboslutely cannot take 5 seconds out of your day to clean your cereal bowl. Really, 5 seconds. I timed it. It takes a person 5 seconds to clean a bowl.

Now, I totally understand. The dishes make it clear that you are swamped with feverishly writing, proofeading, and editing carefully constructed papers, e-mailing your questions and concerns to your professors, contacting fellow classmates and teacher’s assistants to discuss course materials, utilizing professors’ office hours and every other available class resource AND calling your parents nightly to discuss your daily struggles in coursework as well as to seek advice on how to resist peer pressure at social gatherings. You’re not alone. But even with all that, I can still find those couple seconds in my day to sponge the remnants of my Lean Cuisine off of my eating utensils.

John, Anthony, Nick, Frank, Michael, and Robbie’s frequent late night visits make it obvious that you are up well into the night frantically collaborating on group projects. Also, seeing that you guys don’t emerge from your rooms until the mid-afternoon definitely relays the message that you spend all of your waking morning hours affixed to your laptops typing up lab reports and critical analyses of literature. And for those reasons, I respect you, but your dedication is downright scary.

As long as I consistently see the signs that you are overwhelmed and over-working, I am more than willing to do the dishes. I will help you out in any ways that I can. Garbage? Sure. I’ll continue taking that out too; that’s fine. Anything. I just want you guys to try to take a break; you’re going to burn yourselves out. Try to put the pencils down for just a minute; you’re frightening me. Please.

Love, Joanie

p.s. If you guys ever need to talk, I’m here for you.

Sharing your sleeping space with strangers is one thing, especially when those strangers like to heat up curried Indian food at 3 a.m. and incessantly hum Paramore painfully off key through the night (I mean, REALLY. I thought you were a Music major?!). But sharing your showering space? Forget disgusting; the thought itself is legitimately gag-worthy. I may or may not have just regurgitated in my mouth a little.

Believe me when I tell you that it is not hard to die from the horrible things you’re forcefully exposed to in a communal bathroom. Lucky for you, I’m great at not contracting diseases that swim around in public shower stalls. And even luckier for you, I’m willing to share my survival tips. Take my advice and you might not die from a communal bathroom (I offer no guarantees).

1. Wear shower shoes. These are vital in not dying. Your standard Old Navy flip-flops will do, although the green ones are especially effective in preventing infection. Ditching the sandals is essentially a death wish; your bare feet will actually be able to feel the H1N1 creeping under your toenails. Not a fun event.

2. Don’t let anything touch the ground. A communal bathroom floor gets mopped in vomit several times every weekend; do you really want to risk trusting the 5 second rule on your toothbrush under these circumstances? No is generally the acceptable answer to this.

3. Use your foot to flush the toilet. Hopefully this is not a foreign concept. There’s really not much more I wish to elaborate on for this one. Just please don’t use your fingers to jiggle the handle. Your leprosy-free palms will thank you later.

4. Make it snappy. In and out; this is not the place to discuss with the girls down the hall which boys from philosophy class you’d prefer getting with this weekend. The more time spent in the shared restroom, the more time airborne viruses have to manifest themselves in your orifices.

5. Avoid them at all costs. Communal bathrooms should only be used for their intended purposes and only in extreme emergencies. Hair and makeup can easily be taken care of in your room. When you do need to use a toilet/shower, the public restroom should be a last resort. A good example: if you have to pee before you go out to dinner, hold it until the restaurant. Chances are good that the facilities there have a much lower death rate.

6. For the over achiever: Don’t use them at all. Making your own makeshift dorm room toilet is a great way to avoid contracting the bacterial infections populating communal washrooms. This alternative is far more sanitary than public bathroom stalls. Skipping showering altogether will also keep you cleaner than any community shower stall ever could. Just compare my roommate and I; you’ll smell the difference.

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