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 floormates never saw him awake again. I feel
like I’m a member of the national insomnia coalition. 0ur 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 5AM. I could be listening to Kenny G and it
would seem hardcore at 5 in the morning. It doesn’t matter because you
still can’t get an open clothes drier minutes before sunrise. There’s
like this one chick whose always tying up an entire drier 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 God damn 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 rollerblades 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 madeof?)
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 3AM 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 repellant 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.