JJ’s Roommate Reviews

Please note that all reviews are in chronological order. All former roommates have been rated on two scales: likeability and infamy. No names have been changed to protect the innocent, because no one is innocent. (THIS SECTION IS SEVEN PAGES LONG....HAPPY READING!!!!!!)

Scott was my first college roommate, a rich kid from Greenwich, CT. He was short with short, dark brown hair. Preppy, natch. Now that I think of it, I remember him looking a lot like Curt Smith of Tears for Fears. But memory has a way of morphing even the blandest of blokes into 80’s pop stars, you know.

I first met Scott before school started, and he took my friend Jody and I for a boat ride at his swank country club. Very posh. Later that summer, we all carpooled and caravanned to Giants Stadium for David Bowie’s Glass Spider Tour, featuring opening acts Squeeze and Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam! Speaking of Squeeze, we got stuck in front of the stage for the entire six hour event, unable to move due to the crush of humanity assembled behind us, and I had to pee the whole time. He seemed like an decent enough guy, though, sorta nondescript.

When we got to U of M, I learned that he liked to sleep naked (which I liked, too) (him sleeping naked, that is). He had sex in our room, once, while I was there. With a girl. With the lights on. I think I was reading, but I was certainly nonplussed, being a sheltered suburbanite myself.

Scott’s campus modus operandus was to smile at everyone, no matter what. This got him invited to many frat parties. He also played Yello’s "Oh Yeah" song incessantly, with a liberal sprinkling of George Harrison’s "I Got My Mind Set On You." Um. OK.

But Scott’s biggest claim to fame was his penchant for odd pets — mostly scaly reptiles, as I recall. In the first month, he had a snake that was about a foot long and semi-skinny. The denizens of my dorm floor used to assemble for the snake’s regularly scheduled feedings. Oftentimes, though, the snake wouldn’t eat on command, and rather would wait until 3 a.m. (at which time I would be awakened by the piercing sounds of panicked rodent distress).

One time the snake escaped its cage, and I woke up with it dangerously near my bathroom area. The next time the snake escaped, it found freedom forever, never to be seen again (although there were rumored sightings on the tenth floor).

Scott’s next cold-blooded creature was a Nile Monitor Lizard. Sort of like a Gila monster with a bad disposition. Man, that thing was nasty. When Scott would try to hold it, it would whip its head around, trying to bite his hands off. Lacking a proper cage, Scott kept this beast in his sock drawer.

Needless to say, it escaped a few times. Once, when Scott was at a frat party, I was trapped in the room with it, perched on a chair and trying to fend it off with my tennis racquet. No joke. Scott eventually moved into a frat house at the end of the semester, taking his lizard with him. Ratings: Likeability — 6, Infamy — 7.

I arrived back for my Spring Semester at U of M hoping for no roommates at all — praying for that freshman dream, the single. Alas, there were two festive construction paper cut-outs on my dorm room door saying "Welcome, John," and "Welcome, Frank."

"Crap," I thought.

And who was Frank? Frank was a monstrous monstrosity from Trinidad/Tobago who was about the ugliest fucker I’d ever seen. Plus, his accent was so thick that I couldn’t understand him for the first three weeks we lived together. I had to pretend that my ears were still adjusting from my plane flight for twenty-one days.

And if his accent was thick, his B.O. was doubly so. I believe that I addressed Frank’s reluctance to apply hygienic products to his odiferous areas, and he mumbled something about deodorant being responsible for the killing of whales or some such. Fair enough, as long as you didn’t have to live with the guy.

In addition to this, after I finally could comprehend his diction, I found out that he was 23 years old (which, when you’re 18, seems ancient), and when I asked why he was a freshman at age 23, he said, "I don’t want to talk about it." At least that’s what I think he said.

In the end, though, Frank turned out to be a pretty great guy (once I got over my xenophobia). We stayed up late every night, ate garlic rolls, played chess and watched Letterman. And believe me, there was never even a worry in my mind that he would be having sex in the room. Ratings: Likeablility — 7, Infamy — 6.