By request, this one is for you, James! This is probably the craziest thing that has happened to me, and it happened in the first two weeks of college…
I was accepted into the Honors College at UCA and unless you picked people to room with, you would be randomly assigned. To make the random assignment a little more personalized, the Honors faculty sent out a survey to take, so they could match you with roommates that closely resembled your survey answers. So, knowing that I wanted my future roommate to be clean, I put the answers I thought my dream roommate would put down: Very organized, quiet, clean, and not a morning person. I was put in a suite-style dorm, and I was assigned to three other girls. Two of the roommates and I got along right away. We all had common interests and enjoyed spending time together. The other roommate, we will call her Jessica, did not seem to fit in as well. Now, don’t say we didn’t try to include her and get to know her. She just didn’t seem very interested in doing the things we did. BUT, I must say I was matched pretty well with Jessica based on the survey questions, because she liked things clean- I mean REALLY clean. So clean, when we left any dirty dishes around the sink, she would leave us notes telling us to get our shit together. She was fairly quiet and to herself, and always in her room. The only difference we had was she got up at 6 a.m. every morning to make sure she had 2 hours of relaxation time before she got ready for school… You win some you lose some.
So, the first night we had to fill out a roommate agreement that stated our preferences in the room, like when we should be quiet, and if personal items can be shared. Anyway, we were going through the questions and all I can think about is all the parties I am going to later, and all the people I’ve met. I wanted my room to be a fun room, a party room. Well that’s not what happened. Jessica immediately said she wanted the room to be quiet by 10 p.m. and no boys were allowed to stay over. Uhh what? After I heard her state all the requirements she wanted from us, I just sat there sulking, because I knew I wouldn’t get my party room. The last thing on the roommate agreement was how we treat each other’s belongings. Jessica brought a futon to share in the living room area, and her only request from us was, “No sex on the futon.” I am not even kidding. I reassured her I have some semblance of not being a disrespectful strumpet, so we ended the conversation, and went to bed; but while I was in bed all I could think about was who the hell she knew before college that would make her worried about us having sex on her futon in the public area of our dorm when we have our own private rooms? The roommates and I continued to laugh about how that request of “no sex on the futon” was so weird.
Anyway, now to the good stuff.
A few days later, the two roommates and I were having dinner with some of our friends and we were feeling a little mischievous. Now, I will admit I was the mastermind behind all this, because I like to be funny and play jokes. We decided we wanted to joke around with Jessica about this whole “no sex on the futon.” We got our gay guy friend, Mark, and his best friend, Sarah (both whom Jessica knew) to partake in our joke. Our plan was to go to the room and have them making out on the futon with Barry White music playing and have some mood lighting, and Jessica would walk in. The rest of us were hiding around the room and we planned to jump out and surprise her at the end. Now, here’s how this poorly executed plan played out.
None of us could stop laughing. It was just such a ridiculous idea we couldn’t control ourselves. The first mistake we made was peeking out the door, so when Jessica came around the corner she saw our heads peek back into the room and heard the door close. Then when she walked in, Sarah and Mark were hysterically laughing as Barry White crooned in the background. Props to them though for trying to be sexy and keep the joke going. Jessica walked in, stopped in her tracks with a look of confusion and then dismay. She started to walk to her room and as she was walking away, she said, “Really guys, really?” And by that point we are all dying laughing and we run out and grab her and tell her it’s all fake. She began to nervously laugh and we apologized, and made sure she was okay and know we were just kidding. She seemed to get more comfortable with the idea and said, “I knew something was up when I saw your heads peeking out of the door as I was walking down the hall.” We all finished our merriment and went on our way, and that was the last time we spoke of that until a week later…
It was the weekend and I was at home with my mom. I get a text from one of the roommates asking if I had checked my email recently. I said no, and she said I needed to look and see if I had gotten a misconduct letter from the judiciary board. I had, and I honestly had no idea what it pertained to, because all it said was I was being reviewed for harassment charges. Immediately I wanted to act, and figure what the hell was going on, but I had to wait until Monday to get things sorted out. My roommates did a little digging and found out we all got a letter, except Jessica. So, we asked her if she had gone to the judiciary board or if she had any complaints against us. She said no.
[Now let me just put this side note here. I HATE liars. I am a person that is a big advocate for honesty and communication, so if someone has a problem with me, tell me. I want to fix things, so we can get past it. Don’t pretend like you don’t know what’s going on and have everything blow up later. That just makes me hella angry.]
Anyway, we all have our judiciary meetings with the Student Conduct Coordinator, Adam. I was the last person in our group to go, so I had the low down before I went in to meet him. We found out that Jessica had gone to the RA to discuss her time in our room. The joke came up and the RA felt it was necessary to report it, even though Jessica had told her she didn’t want anything to come of it, she just wanted someone to know what had been going on in case she wanted to report it later.
[Side note again… Do not even get me started on all the communication mistakes that were made in this interaction. This whole story would be a prime example of how NOT to handle student situations. It just gets worse from here so hold tight.]
I am fired up at this point. And for those of you who don’t know me when I feel there has been an injustice done, I am determined to make it right. I mean I was on Honor Council in high school for goodness sake! I am a good kid, an excellent student! I should not be in this situation. So, going into Adam’s office I was determined to get all of us removed from trouble and explain how ridiculous and poorly handled this whole situation is.
Adam greeted me with a smile; he did not know what was coming to him. He asked if I knew why I was there and I gave him a brief description of I am here for the mishandling done by the RAs and a gross miscommunication done by all involved. He asked for my side of the story, and when I got to the part about my flamboyant gay friend, Mark, he had a look of confusion. He asked me if people knew Mark was out to everyone, which I replied with a definite yes. This led me to be confused, so I asked him what Jessica’s story was. He told me she said that she walked into the dorm unknowing that anyone would be in the dorm. She then saw Mark and Sarah NAKED on the futon as we all were huddled around gawking at the sight, like some cheap ass porno. She then went on to say we were maliciously taunting her and she didn’t feel comfortable to live with us after the horrendous ordeal she had gone through.
Now, I’m looking at Adam like a deer in the headlights. I didn’t know whether to laugh or start angrily screaming how far from the truth that was. A rainbow of emotions flooded my system and instead of laughing or screaming I just started crying. And mind you they weren’t sad tears. They were frustrated tears. How the hell did I end up getting into such a fucked up situation? Why did I do this to myself? I told Adam what actually happened, which he responded with relief. Allow me to remind you, I am the last person in our group to meet with Adam. It took him four people before me until he found out what really happened! He told me that what we did was harmless and it was all a misunderstanding. So, I am thinking we are all off the hook and we can put this behind us, but he pulls out the UCA handbook and tells me I am going on academic probation for a semester and have to write a letter of recognition. Uh what? Didn’t he just say it was harmless and a misunderstanding? He said we still broke the Inappropriate Behavior (Harassment) policy by “making an offensive coarse utterance, gesture, or display.” That made me angrier, because of how vague the policy was, and I decided if he was going to have his way with this, I was going to have my way with the letter of recognition; but that is another post in itself…
I decided I would no longer befriend Jessica, as it was the best thing to do for both of us, even though we had to do another roommate meeting with the RA to try to better our relationship with each other. Let’s just say that went about as well as poking my eyes out with a sharp knife. Jessica ended up moving out the next week.
Freshman year was full of ups and downs and at the time I thought I would never get through all the bullshit that was going on, but it got better. I definitely learned a lot from that experience. I learned not everything is a joke and not everyone is open to a sense of humor like mine. Jessica and I are on good terms now; she now can look me in the eyes and even occasionally will say hi to me in passing. If there is one thing I can take away from this is a good story and a lot of laughs to keep me sane.
Happy reading!
ATTEMPTING TO ADULT 