The Second Shot (Part I)
Back in the 1970s my parents, both attending Michigan State, met. My mother will deny the actual events but my father says otherwise; she cat-called to him out of her third floor window while he moved in next door. And as they say, the rest is history.
My first choice of colleges was FIT but my parents didn’t think that a 19 year old could survive in NYC so they said pick a school in the northeast (No, Ashley, NEW YORK IS NOT IN THE NORTHEAST) or Michigan State. Secretly they wanted me to go to MSU, their almamater, because who doesn’t like to follow in family tradition? Plus my entire extended family would be able to watch over me since they lived within 2 hours from East Lansing. (I was onto you, parentals) I found myself packing up my dad’s SUV and driving the 14 hours it took to get to Michigan for the start of my second collegiate career.
I lived in what we fondly called The Butt, one dorm in a quad of dorms where they had sand volleyball pits, grass to lay out on and build 8 foot snow penis’ when it snowed. (say whaaat?) I lived on the second floor, with a girl named Marcy. (I’m not even going to protect the innocence of this wonder) I will start with her first then move on to the great parts of this story.
Marcy was a disaster, in every sense of the word. She didn’t shower, she didn’t ever leave her bed, in fact, she ate in bed. And would leave it up there until it fell on me in the middle of the night and I would freak out and have to take a walk to calm down. (At 3am.) The room smelled like ass, it smelled SO bad and was so messy because of all HER SHIT, that I took to lysolling the place with the strongest disinfectant I could find. I would even spray HER while she slept. (At 2pm) We had a lady bug infestation because of her, no one would come visit me BECAUSE OF HER, and I rarely was in the room BECAUSE OF HER.
She? Was nastyyyyyy.
Now on to the rest of the story.
I have to give my parents credit; I did love MSU and I know now i would have failed out of FIT my first semester. Then one tuesday morning, three weeks after being at school, the world as I knew it stopped. Marcy was actually up before I was and mentioned something about a plane colliding with the World Trade Center. I laughed, how could you possibly miss those towers?! They’re huge! I didn’t think anything of it, thought it was a single engine little plane that didn’t cause much damage. I got to class shortly after and the first thing I saw was a TV. As soon as I entered the room and watched the second jetliner hit the second tower, I nearly hit the floor. I had to take a test that day and I don’t think I passed, I don’t even think the professor graded it. I was shaking the entire time, not knowing if my dad was at work down in the WTC complex, or up in his midtown office. These were the days before I had a cell phone, before anyone really did, at least not college students. I ran home after the test, practically knocking down my door to get to my phone.. My father was ok, he was working in midtown and saw the whole thing happen from his office. So were my friends’ sisters, brothers, uncles, fathers and mothers. There were so many people I knew that were supposed to be that that day but were running late, stuck in traffic, or were in the lobby when it happened and had the smarts to get out.
The brother of the boy I grew up across the street from was the only one who didn’t make it, who worked above where the first plane hit. I remember that time in my life like it was yesterday, sitting around in shock watching and rewatching everything that happened. Life moved on, planes started flying again and I stopped having dreams of planes crashing into Spartan Stadium and sleep walking around my small dorm room.
I made some of the best friends there, friends I still call my bestests to this day. There were three girls, which later turned into four, then back to three, who were inseperable, always doing things together. There was Chicago, whose parents also went to MSU and was the rock in our group. C was from Michigan and was our little blond cheerleader of the group. Sarah with an H was the personality, the one who always made everyone laugh.
It was within the first few weeks that Sarah with an H had the misfortune of getting her first, and only, MIP, Michigan’s underage drinking law handslap. I will always remember her for this, because when the cops asked her her name, she gave them a fake. Tara Thomp. Unfortunately she then proceeded to give them her license which clearly stated that her name was Sarah with an H, not Tara with no H. We still laugh about this one. This being one of the first times ever drinking, she then holed herself up in her room not wanting to come out. We eventually dragged her out (Sar, was this why I showed up on your door with a Tsquare and pillow to wake you? No?) and she became a social force in our group.
We made friends with many of the guys down the hall from us and we eventually all started partying together. Usually we could be found stumbling down the hall, going from room to room where everyone would be stationed. I consumed a lot of alcohol here as well, but luckily kept it strictly to the hard liquor variety, developing a strong hatred for all things beer.
We didn’t just party though, we often would exersize, aka walking around campus in below freezing temperatures (we did live in Michigan after all) trying to get in shape. Sometimes I wondered if we WERE drunk, case in point: me and C were out walking and tied our scarves around our heads and were dancing around. (I don’t have a clue either.) We were a crazy group, always finding some way to entertain ourselves; whether it was me and the Future Mrs (who was just S then) dancing around to Lionel Ritchie’s All Night Long (anyone looking in might have been a little scared), making snow penis’ out in the courtyard and then taking funny pictures of us with them, having study groups in the lounge (or just making out in them SARAH WITH AN H. Oh wait, I did that too) which would involve graphic pictures of penis’ and vaginas (what? me and S took a human sexuality class! DUH!) and late night runs to Jimmy Johns, the drug store to stock up on Mountain Dew to survive the many overnighters I pulled, and of course just sitting around in the dorm rooms gossiping, which we did A LOT of.
Of course there were classes but what fun are those?
(To be continued….)
This sounds exactly like my college days, minus the 9/11 story, I had already graduated by that point. But I can totally picture my circle of friends doing all of the thing you mentioned.
Marcy reminds me of one of my friends in college. He wanted to wash his stained clothes, so he pre-soaked them in some detergent. Only that he FORGOT about them and went HOME! There was a funny smell coming from under his bed after a week. Turned out that all his clothes were covered in a million varieties of green fungi!
Eeeks!
I remember 9/11 clearly too (though I had graduated by then). I watched it unfold on CNN, and I thought it was some April Fool’s type of thing, or that some hacker took control of CNN and was writing gibberish. The whole thing became real when my aunt (who worked right opposite WTC) sent us an email saying she was OK and had seen the towers collapsing.
This makes me miss college, and I’m still in it! (I’m just not having a very exiciting summer…)
I’ve been loving all of these home entries. As someone who moved a lot growing up, I can definitely relate.
Man, how I miss those college days. My freshman roommate was like Marcy…DIRTY. She washed her sheets maybe ONCE the entire year. She didn’t know that you could wash bras (her white one was actually gray). She couldn’t do laundry so she’d buy new undies when her other ones were dirty. She’d leave MY dishes on her desk until they were covered in mold…eww. I recently found out she had a kid and just got married. I’m scared for her child because she was seriously helpless in college.
love reading about your college days, especially because it’s in America, so a bit different anyway.
OMG! I wonder if my old college roommate changed her name! I had one just like that! In my case, we got fined $25 because she was smelling up the whole floor. Sick, I tell you.
Dude, I thought I was the only one with a sand volleyball court outside my dorm! Awesome!
I lived in Mason Hall from August to November 2000 (at which point I was dying from mono and moved back home to my mommy) and I swear I had your roommate, except my roommate’s name was Laura. She wore a two piece bathing suit instead of underwear and slept in a sleeping bag covered with leaves. She used the dorm sheets for towels.