Entries in the Category "Life"
The Value of a Closed Window (The Skunk)
Occasionally, there are events you may be involved in, and you might try your hardest to prevent the outcome of another’s decisions, to escape the consequence of another’s actions, yet your attempts to circumvent are futile and you are swept away in the ensuing chaos. Thus was our experience on one very early Thursday. Allow me to set the scene. Becky had fallen ill on Tuesday, with a vile sickness of which the symptoms were primarily connected to vomiting. My own absolute repulsion to “praying to the porcelain goddess” rendered me a poor caretaker, but not immune to becoming ill myself. Although my body refrained from involuntary regurgitation, I had spent much of my Wednesday curled upon our floor, sleeping and listening, somewhat morosely, to a set of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. When finally I was compelled to make the contemptible climb into my unfortunately lofted bed and had dozed into that uneasy sleep of sickness, a noise woke me. The crash of a tossed trash can lid stormed our otherwise peaceful abode, unhappily overturning our hopes of sleep. I look over to Becky, both of us equally confused and alarmed by the night disturbance. Unintelligible voices begin to reach us. Full of aggravation with such clatter at 3:12 AM, Becky gets out of bed to question the inconsiderate strangers. “What are you doing?” she shouts, her voice full of that particular irritation one experiences when disturbed from restful slumber. The unnamed figures, two of which are certainly male, the third carrying a more female visage, do not respond to the interrogation. With a gasp, she turns a horrified face to me; “They’re hurting a little animal!” she says with palpable concern. Filled with new anger and repulsion, Becky turns back to the mischievous students, “WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? LEAVE IT ALONE!” A casual voice responded, “There’s a skunk!” We look down upon the familiar scruffy face of a particularly irrepressible peer, who had felt no shame in crying out “Lick it!” when our chemistry professor announced that a battery was dead. “I see the skunk! I leave it alone- its gunna to spray you!” Becky proclaimed through our screen, her anger at their callous nature and irresponsibility becoming increasingly raw. Watching as though the scene was that of the silver screen – involved and yet unable to act- we witness this freshman ruffian again take hold of the trashcan lid and launch it at the pathetic furry bundle on the grass. Never more precise in her oracular abilities, Becky’s prediction is confirmed as the deplorable stench of skunk begins to waft through our open window. “Oh my god. Oh my god, Kristen. Kristen, do you smell that?” Becky looks at me fraught with equal parts concern and anger. “I TOLD YOU THAT WOULD HAPPEN,” she cries furiously, “FUCK OFF!” And with that final obscenity, she slams the window shut. But yet, the fumes that had escaped the night air, into our cramped living space would not let us forget the incident. We would not easily resume sleeping that night, our heads filled with the cruel event and our noses with the perfume of an abused skunk, whose patience had just run out. My last thought, vague and incensed evaporated with the simple sentiment, “I hope he got sprayed good.”
First Impressions of Dorm Life and the Defects of Furniture
Life in these halls of collegeic residence is eccentric enough to become an entirely new culture. Every day I marvel at the fact that reality TV or National Geographic have not taken advantage of our strange customs and habits. Yes, the number of different species housed under one roof is indeed astounding. From the jocund roommate who hardly cleans, but means well, to the nervous and shy resident who barely crosses threshold into the daylight, we all breathe the same stale dormitory air. Loud creatures inhabit 13 x 16 boxes with the meek, all communally sharing various commodities necessary to modern life. I look to the abandoned chemistry text, being crushed by the dumb leg of my two position chair. Such genius was involved in designing this furniture for dorm life! The careful engineer of these fabulous chairs simply did not account for students such as I, who might in a social moment over estimate the range of said chair’s tilting abilities and land herself square on her back on the multicolored rug of her dorm room floor.
Even the history of communicable diseases shared within these walls is an entire book in itself. Oh, the variety of illness and its victims! While quietly tapping away on my notebook I may observe the rushed (and overscheduled) music/biology double major toting her oboe as the athletic engineering major pleads with his somewhat socially inept roommate to open the locked door so he may retrieve his keys. I hear the loud exclamatory “FUCK!” in response to a failed video game attempt, a particularly trying calculus problem, or perhaps a broken item of décor. The periodic disruption of our feigned attempts at studying is simply a way of life. Then there is the world of whiteboards, where dry erase letters are scrawled in the hand of a generation deprived of fine handwriting by printed type. From the casual “hey lets get lunch” to the irritating and random note left by a resident who believes himself to be quite funny; notes of significance and insignificance litter our lives. The community board hung in our little nook of a common room, presumably placed there for some sort of academic use, is plastered with scores of old card games and the cheesiest pick-up lines we could think of. “You must be the square root of 2, because I feel irrational around you” shares a space with a mock chemistry problem, humorously quipping, “if H2O is inside a fire hydrant, what’s on the outside?” Such is our space of inhabitance, decorated with letters and words, defined by clinical, white walls, and littered with our personal possessions.