The inventor of dormitories . . . let's find him, make him pay for the
travesties he's visited on America's youth, and force him to listen to
Matchbox 20. Can't you see him designing these hellish stacks of humanity
many years ago? From the sidewalk he raised his hands triumphantly and said,
"It shall be like the projects with less violence and more marijuana!" He
then took lumber and Elmer's Paste, as it is often called, to create these
pet-carrier-sized rooms that we live in. You wanna know why people from the
projects hardly ever go to college? It's because they don't want to leave
their lush surroundings.
The actual term dormitory is of course derived from the Latin term for
sleep, which is appropriate because that is all you have space to do. You
have to do it standing up in the bathroom sink but it can be done. The
luckier students have space to scratch their asses but the windows have to
be open and their roommates have to be gone for the weekend. When you go
home the closets even feel like a gymnasium, and you can romp around in the
bathroom like a horny antelope. I can't imagine the kids who brought
everything they own to the dorm. I brought like a condom and a sock.
Next semester I hope to have a towel and the other sock. I also need a new
condom.
Forget having space to sleep. Who sleeps anyway? Nobody on my campus. I
think it's a rule. This one kid tried but no one knows what happened to him.
Let's just say his floor mates never saw him awake again. I feel like I'm a
member of the national insomnia coalition. Our agenda involves a lot of
Frappacino and staring at the test pattern on TV. It's like this strange
pseudo-vampire lifestyle. Did you know that if you stay up late enough they
play the Tonight Show over again and it still isn't funny?
No sleep really fucks with your eating habits too. Every night at 2 in
the morning you get as hungry as a Bosnian and you have to go to the vending
machine to watch the one bagel spin in the carousel of salmonella. People
have White Zombie playing until 5 AM, which to me really encompasses my mood
at 5 AM. I could be listening to Kenny G and it would seem hard-core at 5 in
the morning. It doesn't matter because you still can't get an open clothes
dryer minutes before sunrise. There's like this one chick who's always tying
up an entire dryer with like one pair of panties. I let it slide because it
gives me an opportunity to watch hypnotically tumbling panties. The worst is
when she turns out to be morbidly obese and you have to vomit in your laundry
basket. Not that the dryers work anyway. I could fart on my laundry and get
it drier than the converted toaster ovens that the university supplies. Dry
jeans? Forget about it. I had to convert mine to a deep-sea wet suit.
So what if you want to leave the dorm? Get ready for a chore. You'll
need keys, ID, bag, books, a map, an umbrella, sun glasses, insulin, a snake
bite kit, mace, a pack mule, and an Algonquin Indian translator (Miami
students---you know what that's all about). Then you have to go walking
through the building kissing the asses of all the dweebs you live with and
holding the door for anyone in the same county. What's with the door-holding
policy? Like opening a door requires a spotter. If you've got arms, a
coordinated foot, or useful nub, open your own Goddamn door. No matter
where you go you have to use these gerbil-on-a-wheel elevators. I could
climb up the side of the building with a corpse tied to my johnson in less
time than it takes for the door to close. Then you have to fucking march for
miles from your dorm which is conveniently placed on fucking opposite side
of the campus from any building that is fucking remotely important. People
on roller blades I accept, people on bikes I have urges to clothesline but
tolerate, but people on skateboards have a value just below medically
retarded Nazis. It must be explained to them that skateboards were cool when
we were 11 and even then they weren't that cool.
Where are you headed? Probably to get something to eat at the dining
hall. The only dish they haven't fucked up is
Lucky Charms. I think the university supplies them with a blender and
unlimited horse meat mixed with some retired circus animals. The key to
making the menu fresh and exciting is the food coloring. The charming and
buck-toothed lunch ladies proudly announce, "Yesterday we had chicken nuggets
and today we present to you blue chicken chunks that are totally unrelated to
the nugget dish we served you just yesterday. We are serious, they have
nothing to do with each other. I stake my hair net on it. You can have extra
blue in yours.." And the ladies (who really seem to love livin' in the
exciting scooping career) refuse to serve more than what fits on a toothpick.
You can't just ask for a large portion, you have to ask for "more than the
offensive line could consume this semester." Then you get a second blue
nugget. Remember how excited the potato bar got you the first week? Now the
potato bar makes you homicidal.
(What are bacon flavored bits made of?)
Then you get to come home to your room. Mine is called a suite, which is
a pretty cruel manipulation of the English
language. I get to spend time with the closet case that the boarding office
apparently found compatible with me. He's like Chewbacca's considerably
less attractive estranged midget cousin. A wookie also has better control of
the English language. My roommate is another rant all together. Most people
get one of two kinds of roommates, the one who sharpens knives while he
watches you sleep (mine), and the one who asks you what it's like to go
outside (also mine). My suite mates next door live an intensely Rastafarian
lifestyle. In an attempt to put Cheech and Chong to shame, their bong is a
centerpiece of the room that they clean with wadded textbook pages. They
smoke to Bob Marley at 5 AM on Wednesday nights which is a little too
hardcore but you have to love their dedication to the sport.
End your dorm day by hopping in the shower. It's as big as a tupperware
container. It has 3 temperatures, fucking hot, really fucking hot, and
nuclear. Whenever somebody flushes a toilet on the campus the temperature
goes to skin removal levels and I go blind for a few minutes. I swear it is
connected to every toilet. My brother flushed the toilet at home last week
and I called him to tell him to be a little more considerate. The bathroom
is as clean as any fast food restaurant urinal cake and after the average
college student cleans the shitter with a bottle of Vodka it's as clean as
any bus station. I've given up on cleaning the bathroom and I'm disinfecting
myself. A quick spray down with Lysol Direct and my body is fresh and
repellent to several bacteria.
Bottom line. Turn up the music and try to get high off the fumes coming
from under the bathroom door because they never share. The "best days of
your life" will be over soon.