July 10th, 2008
Four in the morning – the world is quiet, peaceful, deeply asleep. My physical form is sleeping on the couch in my friend’s dorm in Fitz Hall, but my ethereal form is in an endless ocean of dreams, relaxing on a lost island of serenity, sharing a coconut with Halle Berry. The weather is balmy, the water clear and cool, the coconut delicious, and Halle is cute as ever. I stretch out in my dreamy hammock, put my arm around Halle, and just start to reflect about how wonderful a barbeque would sound when –
SLAM.
My bikini island was just used for nuclear testing.
I turn over on the couch. Who in God’s name would be slamming doors at –?
The door opens and SLAM. What? What is going on here?!
The person is in the common room. Don’t move, maybe they’ll –
–flick—
He turned on the lights? Are you joking with me?
SLAM
They had gone into the bathroom. Unhappily, I get up, turn off the lights, and try to resume my thoughts of Halle. Thoughts of coconuts, a hammock, and the smell of burgers on the barbeque start to refill my head. I grab my blanket, curl closer, hear the door open, settle in –
– flick – SLAM
That’s correct, dear Reader. This person had turned on the lights, surveyed the room, and then proceeded to SLAM the door. Halle had disappeared as fast as my patience; it took all of my collected willpower to fight the urge to inform them in a clear, verbal manner that putting aside demonic possession, there is no justifiable reason for slamming doors at four o’clock in the morning, you selfish prat!
Good roommate relations- everyone gets along.
L: Myself and Justin Saporito, with Fran Boshell, almost our roommate, at the Daily Show
Why I present this tragic horror story to you is because that regardless of where you go, having roommates – or community living of any kind, for that matter – requires a certain level of kindness; a person-to-person etiquette. A little give-and-take. It’s an understanding that you are sharing some space with another person and thusly you must offer a little bit of a compromise: taking up three-fourths of the room with your homage-shrine to Rod Stewart is a tad excessive; perhaps your roommate can microwave that Haggis that mom sent him somewhere other than this part of the continental United States. Remember that the other person has their own need for space and their own quirks; respect them.
Bad roommate relations: Mike puts me in a full-nelson, whilst Dave prepares to deliver a punch to the gut. Seems I had forgotten to clean the bathroom…
Worst-case scenario: you come to school, you meet your roommate, and this person has so little in common with you that you might as well be Ann Coulter and Al Franken, attempting some sort of homicidal Odd Couple. You struggle to be kind, to be patient, but they are inescapably rude, and you cannot live with it any longer. Have no fear: at CHC, ResLife has legions of people to help. RAs can settle disputes, RCs can shuffle rooms, even Jen Thorpe, the Director of Residence Life – an extraordinarily patient woman – can step in for dire situations and help resolve the situation, by either addressing the issues and helping you to live with that roommate or getting you a new room. They can even resolve issues between other residents.
The next day I went up to the guy and asked what could conceivably bring about door slamming at 4 AM. He had had a bad night – essentially just a very long series of unfortunate events. He apologized for what he did and we went on our merry way, and nothing further came of it.
Except for that mysterious water balloon hidden under his pillow. They never caught that evil, evil, handsome, evil criminal.
Tagged As: photos, residence life, Roommates, students
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