Moving in to your first college house is stressful, anti-climactic, and is nothing to be proud of.
On the first day of occupying his first house he immediately feels a great sense of pride. He, has been able to pay in full the fees such as the deposit, first month’s rent, renter’s insurance, utility setup, and so on; fees so foreign and overwhelming to the humble mind of a young man who has resided only with various family members and most recently, a campus residence hall for all of his 19 years on earth. This is the first house in which he will live as a so-called “adult” but he does not feel like an adult carrying all of his boxes into the aging structure that he shall reside within.
The house is an exact cliché of what one might expect a college student to rent. Everyone might be awed when he tells them the house has six bedrooms, but they are not impressive, nor is anything about the house.
The house has two stories and he chose a basement room because the upper floor endures uncomfortable temperatures during the heat of the day and anticipated loud drinkers during the heat of the night. He is stuck with one of the smaller rooms because he is the last of the five occupants to move in. The walls all contain holes from decades of posters and picture frames and there is little furniture, except for in the one stall garage where the previous renters have left half a dozen couches that are now covered in dust and shrew droppings. There is already dirty dishes piled in the sink and the living room is plagued with spans of cables and cords for the wifi modem that sits on the floor, an illuminated monster on life-support. There is trash in the yard and the grass is patchy.
This hole-in-the-wall establishment is his summer’s wages. His parents help him assemble several articles of furniture and his mother goes to work scrubbing down every counter in sight. His parents leave eventually and he readies his bed. The bed is new and comfortable. It is the sole piece of furniture in his small room aside from a forlorn desk covered in clothes and missing a chair. He sets up a fan to relieve himself from the existing heat, takes a shower, and goes to bed.
He lies there in his new bed in his new home. He is aware that his beloved roommates and friends are upstairs playing beerpong and texting the elders to come and get the money to buy large bottles of cheap vodka.
He does not want to party. He is tired. He anticipates drunken knocks on his locked door, begging him to come take a shot, but they never come, thank God. He falls asleep to the distant roar of the “kick-back”, assured that he will wake up ready to resume unpacking peacefully.
He falls asleep around 11:30 and his eyes open around 7:30 the next morning. All is quiet. He has no clue of the terror that awaits him beyond the sanctuary of his own room. He gets up and walks across the hall to brush his teeth. A wave of rage pumps through his chest and his head when the first scent of vomit enters his nostrils. There on the cracked tile of his downstairs bathroom, is his white bath towel, now knotted into a ball and covered in used alcohol. There are chunks around the sink and the culprit was kind enough to wipe away some of it with his new hand towel. He looks in the mirror and sees fire in his own cool eyes.
He proceeds to brush with his seemingly unscathed toothbrush and gets dressed, noticing the two souls passed out in the room next to his. He puts on fresh socks thinking, “I am going to kill all these motherf*ckers!”
He walks down the hall and into the downstairs common area. Unknown faces lie dormant under blankets and pillows he had never seen; four of them sleeping soundly on the floor between his stacked boxes. A second wave of anger bursts through his aorta and he approached the stairs, frightened to see the condition of the primary floor of his house. He sprints up the stairs and turns the corner. The oaken and glass dining table his aunt gave him the day before is in the middle of the kitchen. It is dripping with beer and a tower of crushed cans is stacked between the triangles of red solo cups. His old shoes stick to the hardwood floor, briefly bonded by dried booze. There is food on the floor also. The house he has invested his next twelve months into has already been destroyed by an irresponsible get-together in which he did not partake.
Ready to start throwing punches, he exits the front door. He strides to his car in the drive and gets in. This is sophomore year, he thinks. Those motherf*ckers.
