Mind the Shady Shit

Rounds? Dorms? Aren't they lovely? Institutionalized germ petri dishes of adolescent confinement (why am I still here).

Ok, so here's the fat on the skinny: rounds are done at 6 p.m., 9 p.m., midnight on weekdays and on weekends and additional round at 2 am. The weekend counts as Friday into Saturday and Saturday into Sunday rounds, and well it's my first one.

A junior, bright eyed, innocent and completely devoid of the sarcasm and acerbic wit needed to survive man-handing the 400+ 18 year old residents. Not to mention putting up with the RAs and the provisions that indulge their station.

*Aside: these provisions/indulgences are material and immaterial. You would not believe what is internally endorsed.

I was paired with a 2nd year RA to learn the ropes. Good thing, because honestly I was so nervous I  was anticipating a violent backdoor gift from my digestive tract. Thhbbbt!

"Okay so this is how we do rounds. You have to check every part of the building. Especially the places where shady shit could happen." Shady shit? Little me was best friends with my shoe collection. What kind of shady shit could happen in THIS bumble town? Cow tipping? Wow me here.

Oh, did I mention we also have to enter the boy's bathrooms...at this point I'm a slender 5'4" waifish girl with a very thin voice that errs on the side of squeaky.

"So first you listen to see if anyone's in there if the door's closed. If the door's open, then you check under the stalls for backwards feet," the veteran advised.

"Um, why would anyone be on the floor in the bathroom? That's kinda disgusting." Make note my dear friend, this 20 year old did not drink underage. Or do that illicit party thing. Just right over the head. SWOOSH! Rather unsavory. (And what would mummy think?)

"Hahaha, they'd be vomiting...like alcohol. Or like food poisoning?"

"Bad shellfish?" I quipped. I laughed. I tend to laugh at my own jokes to soften the blow if no one else gets my intellectual snarky ego trip. I'm like a female 20 year old Woody Allen minus an attraction to my adopted children.

"*Ahem* something like that," her confusion was audible. "Moving on then. So you check for vomit or blood and if it's wet and not yours, don't touch it." Wet, don't touch. Noted. "And if there is someone in there, of if you can't tell you yell 'Anyone in here, RA entering." Sometimes you get a faint 'DAHUR sumbody in hur.'

And then you run like hell because from the doorway it smells like weak PineSol trying to mask the smell of  what I'm sure is poop residue from the Triassic period, AXE, smelly feet and aftershave.

 Then you go through every hallway, picking up trash, (ahem, making sure you make the residents do it), checking for fire/safety codes, minding outdated posters and looking out for Shady Shit.

Then you do it 3 more times that night, four nights a month.

Hey, the pay is great right? Service...resume builder? Something like that.

ResLife Then And Now

So you remember that person freshman year.

That person that promised you'd have "the best time ever" at your four year college? Or the one that turned a blind eye as you stumbled in from a night you have flashes of memory of?

Or even better, the girl that helped a whole floor of young women pick out outfits for their first date/recruitment week?

Or helped you break up with your long distance boyfriend and took you out for ice cream and boy bashing afterward? Or just drank with you the last day of exams?


That my friends is what you would call your Freshman year RA. Me. And I've lived on campus for 11 semesters now. So I probably know more about ResLife at my University than some of the higher ups that run it.

Now this is not an expose or tell all of sorts (even though it very well could or should be) and if you recognize yourself on here then consider yourself a rather unoriginal individual. I won't be subject to libel thank you.

Or you just have a personality that can be easily satorialized. What's the adjective form of satire? It's 2 am and I don't feel like looking it up... Is that even a word? Well it is now. Here I will post a series of unrelated, or possibly related series of vignettes that documents the lives and experiences of first-year students and those touched by the on campus experience here at my four year institution. Some of them are my experiences of my own mishaps (and if you know me you'll be able to sort fact from fiction) and others are mashups of people I know. But all are funny/scathingly ironic nonetheless.

And seeing as I will never work in Res Life again (please no) then my portrayal and detatchment from it can and should be as unbiased as necessary for truth-telling.

But I won't tell you the truth, because that just might blow you away. And your parents will be worried that they trusted their child's safety and well being to a 20 year old minor that's still figuing out how this whole life thing works.

Children watching children.

Get ready for cray cray.