Those brain addled years that I affectionately call my “college years” (I use this term ridiculously loosely and should really just come clean and call them my “Living in Virginia off Government Cheese & Chocolate Covered Espresso Beans Era”) has provided me with gobs of raw material. Call it a curse, a gift, or a calling, whatever…but here it goes...
Sit right back and I’ll tell a tale; a tale of a goofy girl that’s had more than her fair share of 3-hour tours. I like to call this one…"Chronicles from the College Years" OR ”Just Another Tale from My 2 ½ Year Stroke”
( in preparation for your read, you may wanna click the link for a little theme music :)
So it seemed like a really good idea (as often it does when one is in serious “like”) to climb up a steep hill, in the dark, through the snow and sneak onto the campus (of my very conservative non-denominational university) after curfew (quite a few of my college antics came from not being at a sanctioned place at an approved of time) to pick up a “friend” (code for “dude I was really into that was only vaguely into me”). As I loped across the rode separating the girl’s dorms from the guys, I saw campus security up the hill. Unfortunately, their headlights bounced off of me at the same time. So…like all the other perps you’ve seen on COPS, I hit the deck in a ludicrous attempt to evade the campus fuzz (who was actually just a guy that sat next to me in geography... unfortunately, our class time interactions were never the same after that). As I belly crawled around the end of a late model Buick, I remember thinking to myself that maybe, just possibly, this wasn’t the highest and best use of my time.
As the high beams of the security car made a beeline for my last know location, I played possum. Laying inert in the thin coating of snow, I felt a car pull up and heard the electric buzz of the auto window. A voice laced with a world-weariness disproportionate to his age asked, “Are you okay, Miss?” (I’m pretty sure he knew the answer).
"Well, yeah...ummmmm (buying some time here) you see I dropped my keys in the snow (all 1/8 inch of it) and they slid under the car." (because you know it’s just sooo icy this time of year in Virginia).
“What are you doing out after curfew, Miss?”, my geography-mate asked me. (Hmm…I believe I detect a note of disbelief).
"Oh, welllllllll (stalling again)…uh...actually I live off campus (true). But my, uhhhhhh, car broke down in the Walmart parking lot (conveniently located down the hill and across the road) (false), and I thought if I could use a phone on campus I could call a friend to come help me out (false...but now, suddenly very very true...PLEASE SAVE ME, ANYBODY PLEASE)." As I stood up and earnestly brushed the “mounds of snow” off my barn coat, I know I have played the last card in my hand, and am waiting to be busted. I am also throwing myself mentally on God’s mercy, Who, to this point, I have seen fit to leave back at my rented farm house (or possibly back in my first dorm room 2 years earlier).
My fellow daytime scholar had mercy on me and Campus security brought me back to the laughably named “guard shack” (which was really just an outpost to stop people from skipping chapel) where I called my friend (who was in ROTC, and not thrilled to have been woken up at midnight the night before drills) to pick me up because, as I communicate in my most stilted / sketchy voice, “my car isn’t, ummmm, starting (wink wink)”. Being an astute young lady (and being a street-smart Jersey girl didn’t hurt either), she arrived in record time to collect me before the thumb screws and water boarding began. I held my breath as we exited campus over the bridge, and I promised myself never, never, never again to act like a kook (some promises are reallllllly hard to keep), and especially not over some guy (even if he IS a singing, guitar-playing athlete with the soul of a poet…I mean seriously…guys like that are like college-girl catnip). My friend read me the riot act like only a girl from Jersey can, and in the end just shook her head. I think she knew this wouldn’t be my last dust-up with bad choices and “I Love Lucy” worthy capers.
As the next day of classes dawned, I resolved to do better and be better. I would be so scholarly I would make Ben Franklin look like a slouch. I would be steadfast in reaching my goals (which were fuzzy at best and having something to do with teaching; which was unfortunate seeing as I didn’t particularly like kids. And yes, fellow homeschooling moms, the irony is thick). I would see the “dude” in question and give him a freeze so deep he would have to report to the campus clinic for frostbite & possible multiple amputations.
Regrettably, I did not run into said “dude” for several days (one would think this was deliberate), and my indignation cooled. I continued to be uninspired with my choice of future vocation; while conversely, I was unrelentingly challenged and thrilled with every other aspect of “college” life. Not one month later, the object of my...whatever, shared with me that he had found “THE ONE”. He extolled her virtues, lauded her accomplishments and demeanor (I’m gonna go out on a limb and say she wouldn’t have belly crawled away from campus security) and compared her to his mom (does anyone else hear that death knell?). He said (in his most intense "sharing" voice) that he just knew she would be the future Mrs. "Singing, Guitar-Playing, Athlete with the Soul of a Poet”. (true…they married, had a passel of kiddos and are together still.) (Oh and ps.. if I forgot to say it then; as I was in shock and gape-mouthed and paralyzed with mortification, Mazel Tov!!).
This scrape served as a potent reminder to me of the girl I had once been...pre-college me. That girl wouldn’t have crossed the street to see a guy let alone re-enact an episode of “COPS” with campus security hot on her (belly) trail in the snow . It was, mercifully, near the end of my college time and a great catalyst for me to get it together. Shortly thereafter, I returned home & got a real life (much to my parents’ great joy). I still know a few people from that time (thankfully very few) and we can giggle over my youthful antics…all the while all knowing and accepting that there will be more;albeit healthier, not-so-youthful ones to come.
