The Roomie

Orientation: Two days in the summertime when incoming freshman go to what I like to refer to as informational boot camp- you have to go to decade-long meetings, separate into intimate groups of fifty people, learn how to sign up for classes, agonize about signing up for classes, watch other people sign up for classes, get rejected from the classes that you signed up for, realize that a prerequisite for signing up for classes means that since you're a freshman you wont get to be in any worthwhile classes because you are scum, sign up for some crappy general class like Psych 1 with every other freshman in the state of California, and of course, stay over night with a complete stranger in a ten by ten square foot closet. Basically, orientation is a blast no matter which way you look at it.

My orientation began as any other person's experience. Show up awkwardly in Manzanita Village, get the stupid name tag that says all of your pertinent info just shy of your SSN, realize that you are a dumbass for not wearing sunscreen in the middle of August, perk up when you notice that your group leader is probably an Abercrombie model on weekends (so maybe these two days wont be so bad after all...), and then mosey on over to the office to get your room key so that you can check out your room and roommate and locate the nearest exit in case she turns out to be the uni-bomber's daughter. Simple enough. So I walk up the stairs and I'm my hall I see a guy - I know what you're thinking, is he cute? Nope. Pretty faceless, actually. Just your average bro - and he says to me "Oh, I didn't know there were co-ed floors"; logically, my response is, as I flip my hair and bat my lashes violently (hey, cute boy or not, a little flipage and batting never hurt no one), "I guess so". Famous last words.

I enter my room and much to my dismay, my roommate isn't there. But out of the corner of my eye, I see a backpack. Since they always say that you can tell a lot about a woman by the contents of her purse, I figured checking out the exterior of a backpack couldn't be much different; so I turned the backpack over to have a gander. Oh sweet Jesus. The black backpack was covered with Pokemon patches and Picachu key chains. Fanfuckingtastic- I got the gamer chick; this could get interesting. But I decided that maybe she was a cool girl and I was jumping the gun a bit, so I put my backpack down and carried on with my day.

Fast foreword to 15 hours later, it's one in the am and I'm returning from a friend's birthday party. I make my way to my room, put the key in the door, and halfway expect to see my roommate making out with some guy in my bed (I figured the gaucho spirit might have already taken over). How very wrong I was. My roommate was in the bed, wrapped like in a cocoon, and in deep sleep. I decided that the best course of action would be to just try and be really quiet and meet her in the morning. But, of course, when you're trying your hardest to be quiet, you always manage to be the loudest, so, needless to say, I woke poor roomie up. In true Daisy form, I began to babble like a complete buffoon: "HimynameisDaisyandI'myourroomateandI'mreallysorrythatIwokeyouupandjustgobacktosleep"
Then I hear a noise that I definitely did not expect to hear; it started in the depths of a beer belly, traveled up the esophagus while getting coated with testosterone, snagged on an Adam's Apple along the way, and finally I heard in a deep, groggy voice, "Wait... are you a girl?"
"Ummm, yes. Are you?"
"No."

*******a century of dead silence******

"Ugh...how did you get in here?"
"I had a key" (at this point I'm looking at the key trying to grasp the fact that this stupid piece of metal opened up such an awkward situation)
"Oh. Well...errrmmm.....uuuuhhhhh....are you gunna... I mean, is it allowed....ummm....are you gunna stay here overnight?"

So this is where the mental switch in my mind happened- I said to myself, screw it. This kid is way more freaked out than I am. And hell, I'm taking yoga - quite frankly, I would like to see him try something; I would go Warrior One on his ass faster than he could say "namaste".

So i say: "You know what man? I'm exhausted, I need to wake up in 6 hours, they gave me this key, it fit into that lock, that's my bed, and I'm too lazy to figure this whole sitch out currently, so ya, I think I'm going to stay here overnight."

As I turned down my covers and made the executive decision that I would just bare through it and sleep in jeans that night, I really pryed deep into the innermost echelons of my roommate. His name was William; he was from San Diego; he was a biochemistry major; and he was Asian. I felt the connection. I lay there in my bed and soaked in the awkward minute where CLEARLY he wasn't asleep, and CLEARLY I wasn't asleep, but I decided that it was time to break that silence.
"William?"
"Uhhh....ya?"
"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
".......uhhhh.... right."

The next morning I booked it before it could get too awkward. But I did see him in the dinning commons in line for the soy milk with his fellow Asian homies. Screw it, I said to myself, and I yelled across the dining commons as loud as I could, "WILLIAM!", he looked at me and I continued, "LAST NIGHT WAS AMAZING!" William turned about twelve shades of red, awkwardly waved, and took off towards the coco puffs. I never saw William again. Until I walked into my psych discussion two months later and the only open seat was next to dear William.