My college sitcom

I recently got an online movie rental subscription. Every two days, there's a new DVD sitting in my mail box. Since I don't have cable service, I decided that I would rent my favorite shows from over the years. To start, Friends. The show about 20 somethings living in New York trying to make something of themselves.

Now, in college, we were 20 somethings, but basically we were just trying to graduate on time and really didn't worry too much about the whole "making something of ourselves" aspect.

For the purpose of this post, I decided that there is far too much to tell in one single entry, therefore, each will focus on one person.


Sarah N.
I met Sarah on my first day of college. It was the "Week of Welcome" and to get us more acquainted with college life, they broke us down into our majors and we all spent that week together and freshman seminar.

I remember the first thing I thought about her. "What do we have here?" She came walking up where a "theme" t-shirt that she had gotten from Spencer's or Hot Topic. "Hi, I'm Sarah." Those golden blonde locks of curls swarming in the breeze and her wide-eyed expression.


I don't remember how we started talking or how we even really started hanging out. I just remember that we were living in the same dorm building. I went up the third floor and saw her room and met her roommate, Sarah S. She is a completely different story, which I will get to.

I was always in their room though, or out in the third floor common area. My mom would call my dorm room and my roommate would answer and try to cover for me. "Uh, I think that she is upstairs studying." "Shannah, don't lie."

My favorite memories of her from that year would have to be the sprinkler run at midnight, the "mudslide" that was created from the giant inflatable water slides, or cruising up and down the hill at Centennial Center. We use to cruise up and down 441 too listening to her music. Yep, we were special.

I was so sad when we didn't live in the same building sophomore year. Halfway through, I got my first apartment. They came to visit though. I have a picture of the Sarahs after they had tried to sit on my bed at the same time. I slept on an inflatable mattress during most of my time there because I couldn't afford to buy an actual bed. The came over to visit and they both tried to sit at the same time, on a corner no less, and they went bouncing right off and onto the floor. Hilarious.

Then there was the time when I came over after my crab legs experiment. I was so hammered after the benedryl and beer, that she could not believe the state that I was in. "What did you do to my [Mere]!" she exclaimed.

She was also a party to my first night out on the town. She also took me to Athens for my 21st birthday. That was a great time. On the way up there, it was starting to get dark and while we were on 441 a deer stepped right out in front of her car. I screamed deer, and she said "where." Luckily we didn't hit it, but geez, that was scary.

One night, after one of our late classes, Ben and I rushed home to get a head start on cooking. Mike distracted Sarah N. on the stairs while we got things cooking. Why the distraction? Since we had been eating hamburger helper so much those days, we decided to try something different. Something a little healthier. Turkey helper. Ben and I were trying to brown the meat before Sarah saw it and knew that something was up.

Successfully we finished cooking and we all sat down to dinner. After everyone had finished and we were just sitting around and talking, we asked her. "So, Sarah, what did you think of dinner?" "It was good." "Ah ha, we made it with turkey, and you didn't even notice!" "You tricked me!?!"

Yep, that's all she could focus on, the trickery of it all. Not the fact that she tried something new and didn't die from it. Oh well. Sarah and trying new things is still such a battle to this day. She would order the same thing every time that we would go out that it became known as the Sarah special. Chicken Parmesan. Yep, that's all she would eat. Not the wings on Tuesday night special, nope.

One of my favorite memories of when she first moved in with me. She didn't own a bed either and was sleeping on a futon until she went out and bought one. One night, after watching a movie, Mike decided to do a swan dive onto it. I was already in the next room when I heard, "bang, snap, clunk." I came running in and Mike had busted the whole thing. She had to sleep on the floor for the next two weeks. It sure did encourage her to buy a mattress though.

Our senior year, she would take walks with me around Milly to get some exercise. This was when my feet were still hurting pretty bad on a regular basis. Then I found a cat outside the front door. She would attack Sarah all the time. The cat would be hiding under my bed or someone's and when Sarah was in the kitchen, it was pounce time. I heard all kinds of screams come out of there. It was so funny.

Also, since I am hard of hearing, Sarah would scream out nonsense until I came into the room to see what she wanted. Her reasoning, she said that she was tired of repeating herself.

That house was a complete circus, I tell you what. But it was a great year. I just wish that Sarah had stayed in the house over the summer with Sarah S. and I while we finished up our semesters.