How Not To: Handle a Drunken Mexican Roommate

I have a nice job on campus. It works around my schedule and gives me a decent amount of hours. They even let me do my homework while I sit at my desk. So, when they ask me to come in on a weekend once every other month, I don't complain and I try my damnedest to make it on time. Meanwhile, life tries its damnedest to make me late.

I was already having issues falling asleep. I needed to be out the door at 7am and it was roughly 1:30am when I lost consciousness. It was 3am when my dorm door came swinging open and my entire hallway came pouring in, my roommate Nicki hoisted up onto their shoulders. Seriously?!

Two of Nicki's cohorts shoo everyone out of the room and flip the lights on while Nicki begins screaming something at the top of her lungs in Spanish. I took French in high school, so none of this even remotely makes sense to my sleepless brain. Only once everyone is out of the room do the cohorts realize that I'm on the top bunk, half awake and very grumpy. They begin to explain the situation - Miss Minaj went to a house party, got herself fall-down drunk and worked up over something stupid. Then, Nicki did what Nicki does any time shes drunk: she began crying inconsolably.

When the group finally managed to call a taxi and get her out of the party, they somehow smuggled her past the cop at the front desk at which point she broke away toward the bathroom. Thing 1 and Thing 2 let her alone for a while, but when they realized their fearless leader had been a gone a good 15 minutes, they decided to go check on her. She was found passed out on the bathroom floor, apparently without ever having done her business. Thing 2 was forced to crawl under, unlock the door, and carry out the Nicki we see now - a hysterical, screaming, Mexican train wreck who keeps screaming one Spanish phrase on repeat at the top of her lungs.

As I lay on the top bunk, my head between two pillows quietly contemplating smothering myself, Things 1 and 2 try to soothe the Chupacabra below. This is no easy feat. The more they try to calm her, the louder she yells and the more violently she begins rocking, threatening to eventually roll off the bed and onto the floor. It's at this point that our RA, Crush (ever seen Finding Nemo?), comes to the rescue. Kind of.

Crush tried to calm things down a little more, but nothing is really working. Nicki begins hyperventilating and actually stopps breathing at one point. Crush wants to be the cool RA and doesn't want to send her to the hospital but, truth be told, she actually started to worry me at this point. However, no one is getting anywhere because only one person in the room understands Spanish aside from Nicki. That person isn't Crush. As Nicki begins to yell at Crush in Spanish, Crush begins to yell back in German as some form of retaliation.

The time is now 2am. Thing 1 has finally decided to translate for Nicki who is completely incapable of English. We're not really sure why she lost mastery over her first language, but she did. Regardless, we're now told that the mystery phrase she's been shouting for a half hour straight is, drum roll please: "I need to go to the bathroom". Gee! Imagine that! You yanked her out of the bathroom after she told you she needed to pee, never accomplished her goal, and she still has a full bladder!

Crush tries to help her up to get her to the bathroom, but Nicki wrongly believes she is still capable of basic motor function.

"No!" she slurs in the first bit of English I've heard out of her in over an hour. "I've got it!". Of course you do. She takes one step away from Crush, the only thing supporting her, runs into a wardrobe and cracks her head off the floor. Great. Now my roommate's dead. Wait, what am I saying? That IS great

Ah, but drunks are a surprisingly resilient bunch. To my dismay she picks herself up, brushes herself off, and allows Crush to all but carry her into the bathroom. She returns victoriously, still being carried by Crush. However, when she recognizes her dorm room, she breaks free from Crush, once again convinced she's capable of more than babbling incoherently. She proves this point by abruptly falling and cracking her head off the desk this time, landing with her head against the chair.

I now see what's coming, but the rest of the room seems oblivious because no one is rushing to her aid. You see, we have those chairs most dorms have that rock back when the weight is placed off center. She has landed in a slumped position sure to knock the chair back at any second. And, sure enough, the chair rocks back causing her to crack her head off the floor. Again. I am told that I am a bad person for laughing at this.

Things 1 and 2 and Crush each take a section of her body and hoist her back into her bed. Crush calls it a night saying we're on our own and leaves, suggesting Things 1 and 2 try to get Nicki out of her jeans and clubbing shirt. She seemed to be doing the toddler's "I'm uncomfortable" dance. When the door shut, they got to work.

It's now 4am and I have just witnessed Thing 1 getting kicked in the stomach and Thing 2 being punched in the face by Miss Minaj. This has been one of the most satisfying moments of the night. She has finally started to sober up, I think, because she has also spit out her second English sentence of the night: "Get the fuck away from me you stupid bitch"! Ah, music to my ears. If I'm going to be kept up by anything, please let it be the sounds of my roommate drunkenly attacking her own friends.

Things 1 and 2 gave up on changing her shortly after this. Nicki began rambling in Spanish at this point, which none of us could understand, and I tried to go back to sleep. Around 5am she decided that the only way she would be alright is if she spent the night in Crush's room. Happily, we shooed her out.

I woke up at 7:15 the next day to Nicki pounding on my door, looking for aspirin. If it hadn't been for her, I might have slept the whole way through work. I guess I can be thankful for that.

My Evil Ex-Roommate: Nicki Minaj

This should be a short post considering Nicki and I did not spend much time together - this was no accident, I assure you. Her name spawns from her obsession with the female rap star Nicki Minaj. My roommate loved her so much that she actually attempted to cut her hair exactly like Nicki did. It was pretty awful and ended up looking like a terrible rendition mullet wig.

Nicki was my second roommate assignment. My first assignment bailed on me before we even had the chance to meet, then lied about it. I was angry at first, but then the stories started to roll in. Within the first month of class she apparently uploaded a video of herself jacking a guy off into a cup and drinking his jizz. I think the swap might have been for the best.

I sent Nicki an e-mail and while waiting for a response, I decided to try my hand at Facebook stalking. What I found wasn't promising. Her favorite book series was Twilight and her favorite television show was MTV's 16 and Pregnant. She appeared to be an overbearing Christian while I was a struggling agnostic on the best of days. She replaced the letter "s" at the end of words with the letter "z" because it made her feel more Hispanic. She also replaced random letters of sentences with numbers.

I was dealing with a class A idiot.Why did I expect anything more out of life?

Your roommate is your first friend when you go to college when you don't know anyone else. We really tried to get along, but we were quickly discovering that we had absolutely nothing in common - no bands, no books, no movies, not even any classes. We found our own friends and went our separate ways shortly after the first week. Luckily, her work schedule and my involvement in so many clubs kept us out of the room and away from each other so we didn't have to fight.

Except, fighting wasn't something either of us was really good at. Despite the image I might portray here, I'm very non-confrontational. I will do anything to avoid an argument. Nicki was, apparently, very similar. No matter how many problems the two of us had with each other, we never discussed them. Ever. It was some sort of unspoken rule. I only found out she hated something I did when she bitched to the rest of the hall. Occasionally they were kind enough to convey her messages to me.

The one thing she did tell me to my face was that Tyler wasn't allowed to spend the night or even visit for extended periods because she was so afraid he might hit on her. Really? That's the best you could come up with? I guess I see where she was coming from in hindsight, but it's not really fair to limit who your roommate can have spend the night when you routinely invite guys to spend the night with you. I would often walk in to find a naked guy cuddling with her. That really not what I need to see on my way to Chemistry class.

She also had plenty of annoying habits. She would skype all hours of the day. Because she didn't have class until late in the afternoon, she had no problems with walking in with a group of friends at 3 am with friends, talking very loudly when I needed to be up at 6 am the next day. Beyond this, she also had an annoying habit of talking about me in Spanish while I was in the room. Little did she know, I had a couple friends who were Mexican. I invited them in from time to time just to hear what she had to say.

These were the mundane confrontations. There were others that were much worse. For example, there was the time when she found a pair of panties that fell off my bed and onto her dresser. Rather than leave them and mention that I needed to move them, she threw them out into the hallway and invited everyone to come have a look. I'm not really sure what she thought she was accomplishing here. There was also the time when she came in drunk, which is a fantastic story if I do say so myself.

In the end, she moved off to California and decided to live at home the following year. You know, I'm finding it kind of funny how most people I hate seem to move there.

Running Away (Freshman Year in College)

I had been waiting at least two years to escape the confines of high school and escape to college land, a land where parents didn't exist, there were parties every night and I could start shopping for a new boyfriend. I thought I was ready to move on in life, but a few things were holding me back.

If you go to college, I recommend putting your entire self into that decision. Live on campus. Dump your boyfriend back home. After a while, stop visiting home on the weekends. I didn't follow this advice my first semester and I'm mostly certain that this is why I was miserable.

My roommate Nicki Minaj and I didn't get along very well, but it's my understanding that no one ever gets along with their first roommate. I also didn't make a lot of friends this year because I was tied down to my boyfriend back home, Tyler Durden. Not only this, but I spent every moment of my life checking his texts through the application he had installed trying to catch him cheating on me again. I was trapped in an annoying waiting game. I wanted to see some sort of evidence of infidelity before I could leave. Yet, at the same time, any evidence I found I either tossed away or I just took him right back regardless.

The truth, dear reader, was that I was never looking for a new boyfriend - I was waiting for a new boyfriend to fall into my lap. I might not admit this in real life, but I was scared shitless that I was unwanted. I was terrified that if I left Tyler, I wouldn't find anyone else. Despite how horrible he was to me, and even though I knew he didn't care, I felt that living in pain was better than living alone.

However, I was determined I was going to turn my life around. The first thing I did, as a sign that changes were coming, was chop off my hair. Ever since I can remember I was forced to maintain long, naturally colored hair for baton and school dances. This wasn't a concern anymore, so I got rid of it.

In the lower right corner is what I looked like minutes before it all came off.It was the biggest change I made to my look in my entire life. Then, several months later with the assistance of Lily, I did something I've wanted to do since I was four: I dyed my hair red.

In my eyes, I had finally escaped who I was in high school I wasn't "Belle" anymore. I wasn't known as "that girl dating Tyler Durden". I became Anna.

While I was at school, a half hour away from Tyler, I was forced to find things to occupy my time. I joined every club that interested me: Harry Potter club, Humans vs Zombies, Roots and Shoots, the Residence Hall Association, the Emerging Leader Program and was applying to Honors. If I wasn't sitting in my room alone I couldn't be worrying about Tyler.

I also met new people; people who didn't know who Tyler used to be and only knew him for what he was: a selfish, egotistical toolbag. They didn't see him as who he was, but what he had become, something I had been unable to do for a long time. They were there for me when I needed to cry, but the were also there to give me a good smack upside the head when I needed it. I was, and am, eternally grateful for both actions.

The first time Tyler and I broke up, they were there in an instant: Marshall, Barney, Lily and one of Lily's poor friends who I met for the first time after I had chugged three Mike's Hard Lemonades and my eyes were puffy from crying for hours. They never judged me. When I pulled open the door, fruity drink in hand, hiccuping, Marshall only laughed.

"Got another one?" He asked. "Drinking alone is sad".

I felt like my first year in college was a miserable failure. Although I had met people, I let very few into my life. I hated my major, I hated my boyfriend, I hated myself. My grades were the worst they had ever been and I lost my scholarships as a result. I could feel that the following summer would be filled with changes.

How Not To: Experiment with Hallucinogens

Allow me to preface this story with what I feel is a necessary disclaimer. Don't do drugs. Drugs are bad. This is Spot. See spot run.

At the very least, if you're going to do drugs, don't follow my example. Trust me - you don't want to spend a 12 hour period as miserable as I was this night.

It was the summer between my junior and senior year of high school. I was still with my seventh evil ex who was very open about drug use. He had done quite a few in the past and was obsessed with getting me to try a few drugs. I didn't feel comfortable doing it, but I went with it anyway to try and impress him. What he came up with, I won't name, but it was supposed to combine the effects of two very potent drugs: the hallucinogenic effects of LSD and the social/active effects of Extacy. For the sake of giving it a name, we're going to call it Waves. You'll understand the name eventually.

The night was full of wonderfully horrible decisions and we have a lot of ground to cover. So, let's get started, shall we?

It was a summer evening. I had just changed into pjs and was sitting down with Tyler when I made my first mistake. Poor bastard, I didn't even see it coming. Research the drug. Maybe research seems like a nerdy thing to do, but when you're basically poisoning your body to achieve an altered state of reality, it might be a decent idea to at least read the Wiki.For example, had I read the Wiki for Waves, I would have realized that it was illegal in five countries and not intended for entry level users. And this, children, is what we call dramatic irony.

The start of the night was, however, redeemed by possibly the only good decision I made that evening: always have a babysitter. You don't know what's going to go wrong during your altered state of existence. You might even have a bad reaction to the drug. It's for the best that you have someone there to take over when shit hits the fan. You might think that you're a god now, but when you come down, you will realize that you were sadly mistaken. Then you will cry. In this case, Tyler would be watching me. Abruptly, the good decisions end. You see, I broke another rule already: always choose someone to be your babysitter who is more responsible sober than you are high.  You would think that this isn't as difficult as it is.

Anyway, moving on with the night from hell and my third mistake of the night: never trust another person to measure your dosage. This, I have learned, is a big no-no in not only illegal drugs, but anything you ingest. Although Tyler seemed to know what he was doing, and although I trusted him oh so very much, I was the one ingesting the substance. If he screwed up, it would be my life on the line and not his. So, naturally, I didn't question him and received triple the dosage I was supposed to get.



This brings me to my fourth and fifth stupid mistakes: never ingest and never mix. Inhaling is the fasted way to get a substance through your body. Ingesting a substance is slower to work, but also slower to get out of your system. It's not recommended that you try to ingest anything the first time you do it. My instructions told me to snort the fine white powder, something I just wasn't comfortable with. My brilliant solution to this problem was to mix the powder in a shot of vodka. You know how you're not supposed to mix medications? You really shouldn't mix drugs either.

So, let's recap: I have a horribly irresponsible baby sitter, I've just ingested a triple dosage of Waves in a shot of vodka, and both of my parents are at home and asleep. What could possibly go wrong?

It took about 30 minutes of impatient waiting before something started happening. I was trying to fall asleep (resigning to the fact that my high tolerance to everything was kicking this drug's ass as well) when I cracked an eye open to try and watch a commercial. It was then that I noticed that the words on the television screen seemed to be undulating. As I looked around my room, I discovered that it wasn't just the commercial, but my entire room that was moving. A light in my room with crystals hanging from its brim threw rainbows onto the walls. My cell phone screen's pixels became apparent. It also became very difficult to gauge movements. As I passed my hand in front of my face, I couldn't watch it progress in a straight line. It was almost a strobe effect - my hand popped out of existence and back in several inches later.

Within 15 minutes my neck became stiff. If anything so much as brushed past my neck, my body was flooded with feelings of nausea. The stiffness quickly traveled through my body, tightening every last muscle fiber to the point where I couldn't stop shaking. Imagine the worst charlie horse cramp you've ever received and now imagine it taking over your body. Because most of my skin decided to go numb, I couldn't figure out what this meant. I thought I felt hot, but I was certain the shivering meant I was cold, so I wrapped myself in a blanket and chugged bottles of water, hoping for the best.

As if this wasn't bad enough, my thoughts seemed to be moving at warp speed. Minutes in my head lasted fractions of a second in real life. I was given the remote to the television for entertainment at some point. According to Tyler, I barely turned the television on before I shut it off again. However, I claimed I had watched a television show in that time. So, for every second I was miserable to the outside world, I was miserable at least four times as long in my head.

Then, my worst fears came to life: Tyler decided to leave. It was bad enough when he fell asleep. The social part of the drug forced me to seek human interaction. I wanted to run into my mother's bedroom and tell her exactly what I had done, just so I could have someone to talk to. I wanted to look up random people in the phone book to call. I was only able to stop myself from going off the deep end by writing poetry - crappy, stonerific poetry that sums up my existence for that one night rather well. Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

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I feel bad for waking you, because you're in your wakey world while I'm over here.

Every so often I forget how I feel, but my shadow seems to remember.

Music is in the lines of this page as the words dance and vibrate off it. I pity those who can't see.

You look so careless. Am I writing this for myself? So imposing. Am I tired? Are my muscles weak? Is my speech beautiful if no one else can read it?

I'm fragile. If this pen were to run out, I would be lost . FROZEN. I understand time as a theory. It keeps me here and explains how long. But it doesn't change reality.

You should be awake. SOMEONE SHOULD BE AWAKE. No pen=no voice, lost...And you're so far away. I know I'd be in trouble if mom walked out, but I couldn't save myself.

I want you to live with me. To smile. But you're flat. You should probably be making sure I can still breath...

Light is my home=life=questions? How can a house be so empty? How can existance lie beyond this page? What if I'm pushing the boundaries? What if there is no more? Lines would be just lines without anyone to dictate their truth.

I'm sure my body is tired, but I'm so AWAKE in so many different ways I wish I could tell you.

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My fragile little world crumbled and paranoia set in the moment the lights turned off in my room. I called Tyler before he even made it to the end of the driveway, inconsolable. I became convinced that my pop-lid garbage can would try to eat me, so I took of the lid and hid it under my bed. Pro tip: don't put things that scare you under your bed when you're in the middle of a bad trip. I almost immediately hopped out of be and turned all the lights back on. I attempted to watch television until sleep finally caught up to me.

The hours between 3am and 7am are a blur. I must have thought they lasted eons. In that time I somehow managed to track down Tyler's dealer and beg for sleeping pills. They asked me how much I had taken and was informed that I wouldn't be receiving anything from them - that I was lucky I was alive. It was that night I discovered that I might be uncurably stupid, but I'm also surprisingly resilient.

When I finally came down, the room appeared to be some sort of bizarre Alice in Wonderland replica of itself, but I didn't care anymore. I was too tired. My muscles gave out and I slept in that position on my bed for 15 hours. Surprisingly, no one bothered me, including Tyler. He quietly threw the drugs away a few days later.

How to Prevent Parents from Asking about Sex

I got my first bladder infection my sophomore year. I didn't know that a bladder could become infected, so I spent a few days in a panic thinking I had just had a miscarriage or something. In hindsight, this was really stupid. This was before I had lost my virginity, but panic can cause you to jump to some really weird conclusions.

Anyway, for those of you who have never been given this grand advice, here it is now: pee after having sexy time with your guy friend or you will end up on antibiotics every other month. That's what happened to me, anyway. So, when my mother took me into a specialist to figure out why I was having frequent bladder infections, I was a little confused when the question was asked: "Are you sexually active?".

This is a question I wouldn't hesitate to answer coming from a doctor. However, the situation was a little more complicated: my mother had insisted that she go to into the office with me. Now, this is a really awkward situation to be in. I refused to admit that I was sexually active in front of my mother, but if I lied, they wouldn't be able to stop the bladder infections which, by the way, are rather painful. My mother was giving me a Cheshire grin knowing the decision I faced, but I wasn't about to let her win.

Luckily, I knew my confidentiality rights as a patient over the age of 18. I told my doctor I wanted my mother to leave because I thought the topic was too embarrassing to discuss around her. She argued, but eventually left peacefully. I told the doctor the truth and was out the door with a prescription in under five minutes.

"I know what you told the doctor" she snapped when we got in the car. I was silent.

It actually took her about a year to bring the subject up again. She was attempting to have a heart-to-heart with me that I was desperately trying to escape.

"You know," she sighed. "One day, I hope you'll trust me enough to tell me what you told the doctor that day". Slowly, a plan began to formulate within my mind.

"You really want to know?" I asked her. A challenge had been issued.

"Well, yes!" she replied, excitedly believing  that I was letting her into some secret part of my life.

"Well, alright" I started cautiously, trying very hard to hide my smile. "Well, I've been masturbating, and I obviously need to keep the vibrator clean. Apparently the soap was irritating -" That was all I was able to get out before my mother stopped me by covering her ears and walking out of the room.

That was the day that I discovered the best security investment a person can ever make: a vibrator.

Learning to Live (Junior - Senior Year)

Junior year started off great. My fourth evil ex, Tyler Durden, was back after taking a month-long trip and we were settling into our relationship, even if it was long-distance. Durden had graduated and was attending a college an hour and thirty minutes from my house. That put a strain on the relationship, but he came home every weekend and I occasionally skipped school to visit him. I was still very happy with him. I had a real-life relationship that lasted more than two months. This was some sort of dream to me.

I decided to quit the majorette line my junior year. I couldn't stand all the bitchy girls anymore. And, damn it, wearing short skirts on a football field in below freezing weather outright sucks. I, instead, decided to play flute in our marching band. It was an absolute blast. Call me a geek if you will, but in my school, band was the cool thing to be involved in. EVERYONE did it.

I decided to take on a couple of college-credited classes which, between that and musicals and clubs and chorus and band...It all made me a little stressed, but I took it in stride. My life was disturbingly bland this year outside of my relationship. It wasn't great, it wasn't horrible...It was very blah. Blah is a good word to use here. For more information, see the post on my fourth evil ex.

And then came senior year, the year in which I took over the school. Okay, maybe that's overstating things a bit. I started off the year by being selected as drum major  of my school's band. For those of you non-band-geeks, that's the person waving the stick at people. Aside from directing, you are tasked with sitting around and critiquing a lot of people's work. It's a tough job, but I accepted, deciding to take one for the team.

Beyond this, I was also cast as Belle in our musical production of Beauty and the Beast. I started taking voice lessons the previous year and worked my butt off. Apparently it showed. I was my high school's first princess.

I somehow managed to juggle all my activities, get my act together and graduate with honors and as a member of the National Honor Society. And I managed to look damn sexy doing it.

It's just a shame that I didn't feel half as good as I looked.

This post is really short because I didn't have much of a life these two years. I shared my life with Tyler Durden. Everything I did was either done while waiting for him to come home or with him. I ended up losing a lot of friend in the process. I lost some due to his actions, but most just because I decided to spend every waking moment with this loser. I pushed all of my friends out because I no longer had time for them. I really regret this, but I have, thankfully, gotten most of them back.

Buckle up for a bumpy post next time around.