College Part One: The Lung

(Snuggling in the student lounge with my roommate, Amanda. September 2011)

Part One: The Lung

       My first stab at college was short lived. In an effort to push me from the nest, my parents forced me to attend a tiny college a mile from the Virginia/Tennessee boarder called Virginia Intermont, which later closed due to immense debt. Originally an all-girl's, Baptist-based private college (that was smaller than my high school) tucked away in the south-western corner of the Virginian mountains, it was naturally an excellent choice for me, an outspoken, rebellious, bisexual liberal. It was my best option since I was offered a talent scholarship that covered almost half the tuition and because I had been too afraid to apply anywhere else (they were desperate for students so I knew I would be accepted). Luckily for me, my high school friend Ashley (who I fondly called Gopher) was also attending VI so I wasn’t totally alone right away.

         Upon arrival I met my first roommate, Darla who looked, dressed, and even had the haircut of a giant toddler. She was a sophomore photography student who claimed to have a severe peanut allergy and I'm pretty sure hated my guts upon first sight. (I say "claimed" because I'm pretty sure she just didn't like the smell and/or wanted to get me out of the room more often.) There's no nice way to say this: Rooming with Darla sucked. She stayed up all night, slept all day, made me leave the room to prepare my pb&j's, wouldn't share her mini-fridge, and spread some pretty nasty rumors about me (more on that later). I also met a basketball player who lived down the hall from me and pursued me relentlessly and aggressively (until I moved to a new floor) named Rhonda, two soccer players who roomed together (one was nice and one showed me his penis upon meeting him), my roommate-to-be Amanda, fellow theatre major Angelique (who is 100% fabulous), and my soon-to-be friend Kaitlyn on my first day.

         The big upside to living with Darla was that she introduced me to Jimmy, a huge teddy bear of a dude. Over my summer before college, I had become interested in marijuana. I had tried to smoke a few times without having any real success. Enter Jimmy. On my first night at VI, my girlfriend cheated on me and dumped me. Darla, out of the tiny ventricle of goodness in her heart, introduced me to Jimmy to get high.

         Maybe a week later, Jimmy and I sat in the parking lot of my dorm building in his car to smoke. After some small talk, Jimmy whipped out a 2 liter soda bottle with the end cut off and a plastic shopping bag attached to it and said, "Have you ever used a lung?" I had definitely implied I was a more experienced smoker than I actually was, and I did not want to lose face so I told Jimmy no I hadn't, but I was sure I could handle it. I'm pretty sure he knew I was full of shit and wanted to see how far I was going to take this. If you've never smoked from a lung, here's how it works: first you ignite your weed with the cap on the bottle and the bag pushed in. Then you slowly pull the bag out to fill both the bottle and length of the bag with smoke. Finally, you take off the cap, and slowly breathe in the smoke while pushing the bag in. It's pretty intense plus we were hot boxing. Jimmy was an experienced smoker and (I think) getting a kick out of my refusal to admit defeat. We ended up hitting the lung seven times each, and, man, I was beyond lit. Hopefully, I at least impressed Jimmy with my perseverance because I didn't have any kind of intelligence going for me in that moment.

         After what felt like an hour but was probably only ten minutes of chatting, a panicked thought occurred to me: This guy is huge. I am beyond impaired. He could do anything to me he wanted and I would be powerless to stop him. No one knows where I am except Darla who would surely not give a damn if I never came back. I played it cool (visibly freaked out) and asked Jimmy to take me back to my dorm to which he pointed out we were in the parking lot of the building. The problem was it was on a hill and to get to the door from there I would have to climb a small set of steps (and I was confident I couldn't). As any lady of class would, I made up a really lame (and very transparent) excuse to get him to drive all the way around campus and up to the door to drop me off. As I exited his car, I breathed a sigh of relief that I had escaped whatever terrible things I later realized he would never have done to me anyway. That ended as I approached the door and realized I had to somehow fit my tiny key into that tiny lock to get inside, would then have to pass the building's R.A, just to get my key into yet another tiny lock. Eventually after an unknown amount of time struggling with the key, some kind person came along and let me in. I lived on the sixth floor and didn't think I could make the stairs, so I took the elevator that, of course, opened in front of my R.A.'s more-often-than-not open door, but luckily she wasn't there. As I faced my final obstacle, unlocking my own door, I felt I was home free until I heard from the opening elevator the sound of Rhonda's drawling voice.

         Let's back up for a second. Earlier that week, as I was returning to my room from a shower in only a towel, Rhonda had followed me to my room begging me to take my towel off for her, have sex with her, and finally let her see "just one boob". When I had unlocked my door she had forced her way into my room ahead of me and it had taken a lot of pleading to get her out. Then, when I tried to shut the door, she had tried to force it open and then stood outside begging me to let her in for a full ten minutes. (Fun fact: later that year she got in trouble for trying to take advantage of a sleeping drunk girl after a party.) Now back to the story of the lung!

         As I heard Rhonda approaching from the elevator around the corner, time seemed to move in slow motion. I watched each desperate stab of my key missing the lock, felt my heart pounding with fear that I would not escape her in time, heard her words in slow motion, and each footfall echoed in my ears like terrible screams. Finally, my key went into the lock; SUCCESS!! As I slow-mo flew into the room and Rhonda turned the corner, I heard her call out, "Heeeeeeyyyy, Sssaaaaaarrraaaaahhhhhh," and I slammed the door shut in her face! After about five minutes of her knocking and saying "I know you're there. I saw you go in," as I hid in my closet (high-dea), I was able to come out. I ate every single thing I had in my dorm, binge-watched Friends, hugged Darla when she came in, and passed out.



(Part 2 to be released on Wednesday!)