College Parts Two and Three

Part Two: Roommate

         Three days later, the peace in room 609 was really deteriorating. I could not stand Darla and I'm confident the feeling was mutual. Darla had refused to sleep in our room or be in it with me for long since I had come home super stoned. My friend and future roommate Amanda was also living in a pretty hostile environment down in 209 with her roommate, Paige. Paige was pretty difficult and strange. She had an anger management problem, had grown up a few towns over and never left a fifty mile radius from her home, wore only cowboy boots (even in the shower), and was a math major. Seriously, she loved math which is possibly a super power. We thought that if we could just get Paige to switch rooms with me, maybe everyone could be happy (or Darla and Paige could torture each other but at least we would be rid of them). We went to the student mediator who we will call Mr. D (because I forgot his name -Sorry dude). You couldn't switch rooms without trying mediation at least once or getting his permission.

         Mr. D was a great guy; He was very kind and understanding, super patient, and had a good read on people. Seriously, there was no bull shitting this guy. Amanda and I went to him the same morning Paige had threatened to beat her up and had thrown a text book at her and pitched our idea to him. After a moment's reflection, Mr. D said to me, "What's your name again?" I repeated it and he said, “Yeah, I have a meeting with you and Darla later today already so I guess we just need to set one up for Amanda and Paige." JAW DROP. Darla had set up a mediation meeting for us and not told me so I would look like a big steaming turd by not showing up! (That was low, Darla. Yeah, I hope you're reading this because I'm talking to YOU, GIRL!) I was pretty shocked, and I've never had much of a poker face so it seemed like he had picked up on that when he asked, "She didn't tell you?" He probably figured it out because he was so good at reading people, but it might have been the way my mouth fell open and all the stuttering as I tried to find appropriate words.

         So it was that I returned to Mr. D's office that afternoon full of jittery nerves and feelings of approaching doom. When I arrived Darla was already chatting Mr. D up. She always acted pretty entitled; her mom had also attended VI for photography back in the day so obviously that made Darla some kind of legacy. I sat next to her and Mr. D stated that we were having a meeting to see if we could work out our problems or find a solution that worked for us. I took the opportunity to say my piece; I explained I had found a room I would move to if Darla was okay with Paige becoming her new roommate. I told her I knew 609 was important to her because it had been her mom's room before and I was happy to be the one to leave. I said my problem was just that we kept very different schedules and that wasn't working for me, that it was clear it wasn't working for her, and that I felt it would be best if we didn't live together so resentments didn't build up. I saw no reason to attack Darla even if I did think she was a total buttface.

         Darla took a different approach. For twenty minutes, she personally attacked me. She told Mr. D a lot of personal information about my break up on the first day and what an inconvenience it had been for her, complained about my every personality trait she could think of, ratted me out for smoking pot (which I should add she had said was no problem when we first met), and bookended the terrible hate-fest by telling me she was scared I was going to rape her because of the one hug I had given her the night I got super stoned with Jimmy. (She also took the liberty to share all of this with the rest of the school.) For twenty minutes I held my tongue if only to keep from crying. Mr. D proclaimed that indeed, we would be allowed to swap rooms as soon as he had spoken to Paige and Amanda. I waited for Darla to leave before I wept all over Mr. D, practically begging him to believe me that those terrible things she had said were not a reflection on my character and I would never, never rape someone or intentionally make them feel unsafe around me. Luckily for me, Mr. D was a good judge of character, kindly told me he knew, comforted me by saying he could see I was having a rough time, and allowed me to compose myself before I left his office.

         There was a happy ending because within a week, Amanda and I were roommates (and what an adventure it was!) Before we became roommates, Amanda and I would have "window dates". We would stick our heads out of our dorm room windows and shout up and down the building to each other while drinking juice boxes. One memorable night in the midst of our window date, Amanda shouted up, "YOU LOOK LIKE BATMAN LOOKING DOWN ON GOTHAM CITY!" The nickname stuck. Amanada became my Robin, my blue Ford Focus became known as The Batmobile, our room was The Batcave, and we had a few enemies: The Joker (a creepy old guy with a crush on me who sometimes bought us alcohol), The Riddler (our upstairs neighbor who often had loud but fast sex in the middle of the day [the riddle was how someone kept having sex with him]), and Two Face (a dramatic, back-stabbing girl in our friend group). People around campus actually called us Batman and Robin probably 60% of the time and IT WAS AWESOME.

(Amanda and me prowling the halls of our dorm as our own versions of Batman and Robin)

        We had a great time living together. We would have Lord of the Rings marathons that involved drinking games, we discovered the movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall together (after seeing it, we often greeted each other with the famous “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”), we went with each other to get piercings and tattoos (and even hung out with our piercer, Scotty, pretty often). We found a strip club the next city over called Fuzzy Holes (we did not go in), went to drive through movies, and had many rounds of hide and go seek tag with our friends in the local (and huge) Wal-Mart.

(Me, Kaitlyn, and Amanda on a Wal-Mart adventure)

         One of the best things about living with Amanda was that she is a huge animal lover. She had a huge aquarium and was super serious about taking care of her beautiful fish. Although fish were the only pets we were allowed to have, Amanda decided she was getting more pets. She had the best pet rat that has ever been, a grey and white guy named Trevor, and convinced me to get the best hamster ever, a tiny grey Russian dwarf hamster I dubbed Cherokee Jack (as a tribute to Creed Bratton from the US version of The Office). They lived mostly in the hoods or pockets of our sweatshirts and were our awesome buddies. We even dog-sat two dogs for a full weekend without getting caught.

Here are some other great things about Amanda:

·Always decorated for holidays

·Respected my sleeping time

·We had the same friends and never left each other out

·Called me "Dragon Lady" in the morning

·Tolerated my rebellious tendencies

·Didn't care if I made a mess

·Tumbled with me (as in Tumblr, not gymnastics)

·Got drunk on strawberry vodka with me a lot

·Brought me food when I was sick on the toilet

(Amanda, Kaitlyn/The Spirit of Christmas, and Gopher decorating the hall outside of the Batcave for Christmas)

As you can see, Amanda was the best roommate of all time. Living with her was a dream; it was so great I knew even then that these were "the good old days.”

Part Three: Goodbye

         There was one really huge difference between Amanda and me: Amanda was a hardworking and serious student who knew how to balance her time between work and play and never skipped class or half-assed an assignment. I, on the other hand, was unmotivated, uninspired, and uninterested. After the first semester, I was on academic probation. In the second semester, I stopped going to classes most of the time in order to work more hours as a server at Red Lobster ( which I obviously preferred to school work).

          By the time midterms rolled around, my really great voice teacher let me know my grades were so bad that if I didn't drop out, I'd be kicked out and probably never get into another college. A week later, I packed up my car, gave Amanda one final hug, and made the 8 hour drive home with Cherokee Jack in my cup holder. Although I did not succeed at being a student (although if anyone thought I would in that stage of my life they were kidding themselves), my parents did accomplish something by sending me away: I got my first real taste of freedom and would never stop craving it again. I gained a lot of experience even if I wasn't yet able to put it to practical use and I learned so much about myself. Being at VI was a life changing experience for me; I have never regretted that time of my life (however misguided I may have been back then.)

(“I am a flaming ball of faaaaaaaaaaart!” –Amanda Wiehrs)

This essay is dedicated to my college roommate, Amanda Wiehrs; you changed my life with your love and true friendship. Thank you, I love you, you're the greatest roommate of all time.