August 13, 2010
Mongo’s Infamous RDI
A few weeks after I met CT and BR, Mongo was still pretty much following me around everywhere, and so all of my new friends had to put up with her if they wanted to hang out with me. (Lame, right?) But anyway, one night, a few of us had gone out bar hopping, and Mongo was throwing her typical temper tantrum because we “weren’t paying enough attention to her”. For whatever reason, instead of letting her get pissy and storm off (as usual), I decided to make it my mission to find a mildly attractive boy for her to talk to so she wouldn’t make a scene (again, as usual).
And I lucked out. As I was making my rounds at the bar, I saw this cute boy, B, that I had kind of met before… and he had a friend with him. I provided the introductions, and Mongo was surprisingly into it. After a while, the rest of my friends were ready to move on to the next spot, but I decided to be nice and stay with Mongo so that she could hang out with this guy that she seemed to be interested in. (Because, as shallow as it sounds, I knew that the guy would have ditched her if he wasn’t still trying to play wingman for B with me.)
So eventually the four of us ended up leaving the bar to head out dancing, and as we were walking to the car, Mongo fell. I was totally embarrassed for her, so I tried to help her play it off as no big deal. She kept insisting that her foot really hurt, but I of course, was working my ass off to convince her otherwise and keep some of her dignity intact. And – I’m not sure if it was alcohol-induced or what – but she finally agreed that it wasn’t too bad, and we got on with the night.
We went out dancing for a few hours, and then went back over to B/other boy (who was apparently his roommate)’s house for a few more drinks. Not that we needed them. Mongo ended up drawing palm trees all over these poor boys’ mantel (in their rented house), and I threw up in a cup on the coffee table. See, I *told* you we didn’t need a few more drinks.
Anyway, it was around 8:00 A.M. when B took us back to the dorms (and I had a plastic grocery bag looped over my ears to keep it close to my face for “motion sickness”), and we saw some of our dorm-mates leaving for class. One of them, S, looked at us in our sloppy state, then Mongo’s foot, and asked what the hell had happened. Then, finally, as I was hysterically cracking up and trying to tell S about our night, I looked down at Mongo’s foot. She had a blood-soaked sock covering one of her sandaled feet, and I thought I was going to be sick. Thankfully S, the ever rational one, brought Mongo inside and sat her down to take a look.
Turns out, Mongo’s foot really *was* hurt. During the fall outside the bar, she ended up ripping her entire big toenail off (which is where the blood came from obvs, but I still have no idea about the random sock’s origins…), and her foot was completely swollen and bruised. Unfortunately for Mongo, I was about to leave for the airport to head home for the weekend, so she was going to have to get this situated on her own.
But she didn’t. I came back three days later to find her chillin’ in the bed, in the same position that I left her. I asked her what was up and why she hadn’t seen a doctor if her foot was still hurting so badly, but she said that she had just been living on the Easy Mac she had stored in a bin under her bed for the weekend while she waited on me to get back. Gee… thanks. But I of course, being the *wonderful* roommate that I was, helped her big ass to the student health center where we found out that her foot was actually broken. (A broken foot from a Random Drunken Injury… really?! Who does that?!)
And to top it off, she told her mom that she slipped on the dorm stairs walking to class in the rain.
Yeah… awesome…
August 10, 2010
Pantless in the Dorms
(Before I start, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been M.I.A. for a while because I was traveling again for work. I’ll be home for a few weeks though, so I’ll try not to leave you hangin’ like that again for a while. But anyway… back to business…)
Since things weren’t working out so well with Mongo and me, I quickly realized that I needed to branch out and get some new friends. At this point, I had hung out with some of the girls from my dorm and a few people that I had classes with, but I desperately needed some *real* friends in addition to the people that were just cool to go out and get wasted with. You know, good friends… like the kind of people who will let you borrow their clothes. And who have closets with stuff you actually want to borrow. In your size.
Anyway, a few weeks into my college experience, I faced the age old dilemma of women everywhere: nothing to wear in a closet full of clothes (which is obviously before I discovered Forever 21). So after some serious time spent trying on everything in my wardrobe, I finally decided that it was as good a time as any to venture out and find a new, non-Mongo-sized friend with good style. And apparently, I thought that was such a great idea that I rushed out of my room and didn’t *think* to put on pants. So there I am, thong and all, wandering down the hall in search of a small girl fashionista.
Luckily for me, I found a sweet pair of roommates from Connecticut (let’s call her CT) and Baton Rouge (BR) just a couple doors down. I’m not sure if they were really that nice or if they were simply in total shock to see a half-naked girl at their door, but they let me in. And it was like I hit the jackpot.
CT’s closet was full of adorable going out tops, party dresses, shoes, and accessories galore. And even though she was a good bit taller than me, we wore the same size. It was like heaven in there, and she was actually willing to loan out her stuff. So I borrowed something that night, and came back the next, and even the night after that. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was the perfect beginning to my wonderful friendships with both of them. And the rest… is history.
August 2, 2010
Mongo
Since I ventured out and went to college about ten hours away from my hometown, I didn’t have any friends or anyone I knew that was going there with me. And that was kind of the point. Don’t get me wrong, I love my hometown. Buuuut… I don’t exactly love the close-mindedness of a lot of the people I grew up with around here. So I had to get out. And what better place than New Orleans?
Anyway, I had opted for an all-girls dorm (which may or may not sound like fun to y’all, but the girls’ dorms were the only ones with sinks in the rooms, and to me, that was HUGE), and I was randomly assigned a roommate. But even before the big move in day, the college had given us each other’s contact information so we could “meet” on the phone. And fortunately for me, I can tell a lot about a person by their phone voice. She was a little awkward to talk to, but seemed like a nice enough girl at the time, only she sounded…. big. I know it seems crazy, but I’m a pretty small person (I’m around 5’4″ and at the time I weighed less than 110 pounds), and so I have this sixth sense where I just know what big people sound like. So anyway, I named her Mongo (though, to this day, she never knew that was her nickname).
And, you know what? I was right. I *strategically* got to the dorm first so I could pick my bed and get my stuff set up how I wanted, and in walked Mongo. She was 5’10”-ish and could have easily weighed 190 or 200 pounds. (To y’all that may not seem that big, but to a tiny ex-cheerleader, she was a beast.) And she had a really deep, masculine voice. And she could have easily kicked my ass. And looked like she would… in a heartbeat.
Yeah… not cool…
I tried *really* hard to be friends with her, but in the end, it took me less than a week to realize that we weren’t exactly compatible. It’s not just that she was big; she was borderline scary. And antisocial. And awkward. And uninvolved in college life. And she had bad style and barely wore makeup and still somehow managed to hog the mirror and the sink. So basically, we were polar opposites. And it didn’t take long for our personalities to start clashing.
Confessions Of A College Graduate 