Chapter Two - The Pitfalls of Cohabitation
At some point in July, 2004, a little card came in the mail, addressed to me. The return address was from Allegheny College. I tore it open, revealing a card that told me the name, phone number, street address, and eventual email address of the person I had been fated to share a dorm room with. His name was William Lappalainen.
"You should call him, find out what he's like." said my mom.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." I said.
"Why don't you do that right now?" she asked.
"I'm kinda tired. I'll do it in a little bit, though."
Three weeks later, I called him. I got the answering machine, and left a drawn out, somewhat awkward message asking him to call me back when he got the message.
Ten days later, my mom was insisting I call him again. Apparently, he was dreading first contact as much as I was. I came home from work one day, exhausted (I worked at my dad's machine shop/gulag that summer. The workday was 6:30 AM to 4:30PM, leaving me just a bit bushed by the time we'd get home at 5:30) and with my cache of excuses just about depleted. Around about seven o'clock, the phone rang, and I was delivered.
"May I please speak to Mark?"
"Speaking."
"Hi, Mark, this is William, your roommate."
"Ah, cool. Glad to hear from you. I take it you got the message."
"Yeah, I'm sorry about the delay, we were actually on vacation."
"That's cool. You can tell me all about it when we meet in person."
The conversation continued for awhile, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. The first hint I got that we might not be so compatible was when I brought up the item of video games. When I was five years old, my parents gave me one of the old 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment Systems for Christmas. The first video game I ever played was the original Super Mario Brothers. For my birthday the following March, I was given the greatest video game ever made, Super Mario Brothers 3 (an interesting note: The Guiness Book of Records backs up this claim with the game's world record sales topping 15 million in its NES incarnation alone). By fourth grade, Earthworm Jim and Sonic the Hedgehog from my Sega Genesis were my favorite hobbies. I wanted a Nintendo 64, but never had the means to buy one, being 12 at the time; however, the slight was softened by the arrival of a GameBoy Color, complete with a copy of the life-consuming Pokemon: Blue Version (anyone who's played any of the first three Pokemon games knows what I'm talking about). I scored a Sega Dreamcast at age 13. Anyone who makes fun of that system for its short run deserves to have his genitals cut off (because let's face it, anyone making fun of a video game system is going to be male). After the distressingly short release period for Dreamcast, Mom and Dad decided to hold off buying a new console when PS2, GameCube, and XBOX came out, making sure they'd still be notable the following year. At the time, I wanted a GameCube; I loved the 4-player aspect of Dreamcast, and PS2 was a two player system (and I don't want to hear any crap about that stupid "multi-tap" adapter thing. How many games actually use it? Yeah, that's right!) and I had had a computer running Windows 95, creating an inherent distrust of Microsoft and its XBOX. I'm glad my parents decided to wait; I've since played Nintendo's diabolical Cube and have yet to understand how many fingers the target audience has on each hand--that controller is fucked up. As a result, a brand new XBOX plopped itself under the tree on December 25th, 2002. Well, I wasn't about to part with my beloved console gaming just because I was going to college.
"So, William, do you have a PS2 or XBOX or something, or should I pick one up?"
He seemed taken aback. "Um, no, I don't have either one. Uh, you can get one if you want."
"Okay, no problem. Well, I think that about covers everything. So, I guess I'll see you in a few weeks."
"You too."
"You know, I'd just like to say that you seem to be a pretty decent human being. I was worried I'd get stuck with some weirdo I'd never get along with, but you sound like the kind of person I could spend a year living with."
"Thanks. You too." With that, we both hung up.
By the end of orientation, things became a little less congenial. I was a light sleeper, he was a night owl. Our music collections would probably have had a knock down, drag out fight if they'd met on the street (although I'd like to think my collection would've kicked his ass. I liked punk rock and alternative metal; he liked jazzy pop and soft rock. Our clash of tastes provided me with a humorous mental image of Rob Zombie beating the shit out of Norah Jones). Before he left the room, his clothes had to match; I would simply double check that I was wearing pants.
Ah, well. I wasn't going to let a minor issue like differing tastes ruin my college experience. He wasn't a bad guy; both of us seemed to acknowledge the differences between us, so we each made allowances for the other.
Now I know there's somebody reading this and going, "The bastard gipped me! The title said there were going to be 'pitfalls!'" This is true. The ones stated so far were pretty minor, but I'm still setting the stage. Don't worry, things'll get going pretty soon.
Originally posted on December 5th, 2004
"You should call him, find out what he's like." said my mom.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." I said.
"Why don't you do that right now?" she asked.
"I'm kinda tired. I'll do it in a little bit, though."
Three weeks later, I called him. I got the answering machine, and left a drawn out, somewhat awkward message asking him to call me back when he got the message.
Ten days later, my mom was insisting I call him again. Apparently, he was dreading first contact as much as I was. I came home from work one day, exhausted (I worked at my dad's machine shop/gulag that summer. The workday was 6:30 AM to 4:30PM, leaving me just a bit bushed by the time we'd get home at 5:30) and with my cache of excuses just about depleted. Around about seven o'clock, the phone rang, and I was delivered.
"May I please speak to Mark?"
"Speaking."
"Hi, Mark, this is William, your roommate."
"Ah, cool. Glad to hear from you. I take it you got the message."
"Yeah, I'm sorry about the delay, we were actually on vacation."
"That's cool. You can tell me all about it when we meet in person."
The conversation continued for awhile, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. The first hint I got that we might not be so compatible was when I brought up the item of video games. When I was five years old, my parents gave me one of the old 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment Systems for Christmas. The first video game I ever played was the original Super Mario Brothers. For my birthday the following March, I was given the greatest video game ever made, Super Mario Brothers 3 (an interesting note: The Guiness Book of Records backs up this claim with the game's world record sales topping 15 million in its NES incarnation alone). By fourth grade, Earthworm Jim and Sonic the Hedgehog from my Sega Genesis were my favorite hobbies. I wanted a Nintendo 64, but never had the means to buy one, being 12 at the time; however, the slight was softened by the arrival of a GameBoy Color, complete with a copy of the life-consuming Pokemon: Blue Version (anyone who's played any of the first three Pokemon games knows what I'm talking about). I scored a Sega Dreamcast at age 13. Anyone who makes fun of that system for its short run deserves to have his genitals cut off (because let's face it, anyone making fun of a video game system is going to be male). After the distressingly short release period for Dreamcast, Mom and Dad decided to hold off buying a new console when PS2, GameCube, and XBOX came out, making sure they'd still be notable the following year. At the time, I wanted a GameCube; I loved the 4-player aspect of Dreamcast, and PS2 was a two player system (and I don't want to hear any crap about that stupid "multi-tap" adapter thing. How many games actually use it? Yeah, that's right!) and I had had a computer running Windows 95, creating an inherent distrust of Microsoft and its XBOX. I'm glad my parents decided to wait; I've since played Nintendo's diabolical Cube and have yet to understand how many fingers the target audience has on each hand--that controller is fucked up. As a result, a brand new XBOX plopped itself under the tree on December 25th, 2002. Well, I wasn't about to part with my beloved console gaming just because I was going to college.
"So, William, do you have a PS2 or XBOX or something, or should I pick one up?"
He seemed taken aback. "Um, no, I don't have either one. Uh, you can get one if you want."
"Okay, no problem. Well, I think that about covers everything. So, I guess I'll see you in a few weeks."
"You too."
"You know, I'd just like to say that you seem to be a pretty decent human being. I was worried I'd get stuck with some weirdo I'd never get along with, but you sound like the kind of person I could spend a year living with."
"Thanks. You too." With that, we both hung up.
By the end of orientation, things became a little less congenial. I was a light sleeper, he was a night owl. Our music collections would probably have had a knock down, drag out fight if they'd met on the street (although I'd like to think my collection would've kicked his ass. I liked punk rock and alternative metal; he liked jazzy pop and soft rock. Our clash of tastes provided me with a humorous mental image of Rob Zombie beating the shit out of Norah Jones). Before he left the room, his clothes had to match; I would simply double check that I was wearing pants.
Ah, well. I wasn't going to let a minor issue like differing tastes ruin my college experience. He wasn't a bad guy; both of us seemed to acknowledge the differences between us, so we each made allowances for the other.
Now I know there's somebody reading this and going, "The bastard gipped me! The title said there were going to be 'pitfalls!'" This is true. The ones stated so far were pretty minor, but I'm still setting the stage. Don't worry, things'll get going pretty soon.
Originally posted on December 5th, 2004
posted by Andrew Michael at 3:23 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home