roomates - 1st year - sound & silence - 1of4

Without much in the way of defense of male testosterone when the cruel experiment of throwing four random strangers into a single dorm suite without any warning.

Having moved to a completely new city and life to attend Journalism school. May have become socially tipsy, but I met lots of interesting people all over the dorm.

Homesick, worried about a huge amount of work, even just heart-broken from a summer romance, it was a great mix with Appleton Rum and cheap Albertan Big Rock Beer. Made up for it by drinking a lot of water and exercising when I could.

Wrote articles sobering up like Hunter S Thompson and interviewed amazing people, some of them still sobering up around dorm. It was good fun but I can't say that my own company at home was perfect.


An old sports-writer who lived in my neighbour-hood in Victoria roared with laughter when I related these tales, so I write after his encouragement and to honour his sense of humour as he's now writing in Heaven.

To avoid them grief and slander, I'll call them by their nicknames, Emo-boy, Artsy-wino and Silence. It was an odd match-up to say the least. Halo-boy came in for re-enforcement part way through the year, but it was a strange discord to be sure.

'What's wrong with you? Why is this place so messed up? I'm going to my room....' And tortured cats yeowling of guitars, dying singers and heavy bass would emit from the room at all times of day and night. Emo-boy had three CDs it seemed, all of them screa-mo. Which is exactly what they sounded like, screaming and emo crying.

Guess when he'd play them? To wake up to first thing in the morning or to drown out our request to turn it down. Artsy-wino threw one CD out the window eventually and would have repeated the process if Emo-boy hadn't started up exactly like his CD sounded.

You might think I'm being harsh, although he might have been a nice kid, he left home and didn't know how to cook, clean, look after himself because he was too busy moping around. Maybe because I had a reserve navy officer for a father, but chores and swabbing the deck were expected, non-negotiable.

Having dishes pile up and mold, floors go un-vacuumed or washed in the common room, and really, I didn't know how he managed to sleep in his room, let alone breathe from locker room smell. He'd stumble hungover into his pots and dishes when I got tired of it and piled them two feet high in front his door every once in a while.

Consequentially an amazing squeal of whining at 6AM over-powered the screa-mo music blaring. He'd pound on my locked bedroom door, still whining. Without rolling out of bed, I'd issue standard threat that I had the phone number of Emo-boy's mother and would call about the mess. Knowing I met her when he moved in, he didn't want find out if I was bluffing so sulked back to his room.

Artsy-wino was similarly tired by half-way through the term and made me breakfast in thanks because he was so sick of Emo-boy as well. I wouldn't have been so harsh if he did anything besides play video games and whine about classes. I wish I was 18 years old again.

To be continued.... stick around for this four part series of weird-ness and fun coping with madness.


-- PLR --


p.s.


To put it nicely, it wasn't perfect, but I was too tired to care after working long on articles and delicate issues, so here's some of the back-story of why dorm-life was so strange some days. Emo-kid graduated and was doing well last I randomly met up with him.