JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: After an exciting summer of work, travel and surgery, Youngest is back at the University of Maine, in a new dorm and with a new roommate. Her freshman roommate was wonderful, but decided to live off-campus this year, so another of Youngest's friends stepped into the breach. Coincidentally, the Smithie acquired a new roommate recently as well. She and The Very Tall Boyfriend share a three bedroom apartment, and having someone in the third room helps keep the costs low. They've also been fortunate in their apartment mates; the previous one was a wonderful young medical professional who left because her work required her to be closer to the hospital. 
The Smithie, however, hasn't always had good roommate luck. Her assigned freshman roomie had apparently developed some, shall we say, strange schedules at the boarding school that preceded college for her. She would start working around midnight, studying and writing with desk lamp and computer lighting up the room. That would have been bad enough, but she would actually print out papers at 3am - on the machine situated between their twin beds. Unsurprisingly, she'd also sleep most of the afternoon, leaving the Smithie to tiptoe in and out of her room, afraid to turn on the lights or open the curtains (because SHE had been brought up to consider other people's feelings. Can you tell I'm still ticked off at the roommate?)Eventually, the RA and then the house committee were called in, and after the first semester, the Smithie got her own room, from a junior who had gone abroad. She was so put off by the experience, she didn't share her space with another person until the Very Tall Boyfriend came around.
I've never had that bad of a roommate, thank heavens. I've had a few whose names and faces I can't recall, I married one :-) , one is still my very best friend, and I had several that were perfectly nice and unexceptional. As a young working woman in DC, I had one memorable housemate, a brilliant, funny, generous Georgetown Law student who had been raised (I'm swear this is true; not exaggerating here) by freethinkers from New York who thought teaching their daughter any form of manners, personal hygiene, and environmental cleanliness was oppressing her and promoting the bourgeois values of the capitalist class. (I should mention these good socialists owned the same sort of upper West Side apartment you see on Mrs. Maisel, and could afford to pay their kids way through college and law school.)
This wasn't a huge problem for her housemates - she would clean up after herself in the kitchen, and we all had our own bedrooms and baths, but the chickens came home to roost when she started getting job interviews with white-shoe law firms (she was an excellent student!) For those of you who aren't familiar with the process, interviews with prestigious law forms involve the prospective associate being taken out to lunch at a good restaurant, usually by several partners and possibly a senior associate or two. My poor roomie didn't know how to use a napkin, she had no concept of which utensil to use when, and she ate with her mouth open. With her mouth open and the FOOD WOULD FALL OUT ONTO HER CLOTHING. And she wouldn't wash her clothing for a very long time. One of the other girls and I put her through Miss Manners Boot Camp. We drilled her on silverware, napkins, sitting, chewing, excusing herself, etc., etc. We made her pretend we were partners at the firm and had her eat soup in front of us while also conversing (that was a challenge.) Alas, I left to marry Ross before I found out if she got a plum position. She was a lovely person, even if she didn't brush her hair or apply deodorant, and I wish her well.How about you, Reds? Who were your memorable roommates?
HALLIE EPHRON: My first college roommate was a disaster. We got off on the wrong foot when I arrived after her, and her mother was arranging her underwear in the bureau and I thought *she* was the roommate. We were... incompatible. And ended up asking for separate rooms, but weren't deemed dysfunctional enough for it to be granted. Food did not fall out of her clothing...LOL. But she was just a very dour person.JENN McKINLAY: I never had a terrible roommate, but I have to admit I have pretty low standards. Given that I'm the girl who lived out of her laundry basket for four years, because putting clothes in drawers just seemed so futile, I have no room to judge. My first roommate was a cheerleader, very nice girl, but she was looking for her Mrs. degree, so we had nothing in common and separated after our first semester. After that, I roomed with friends and then boyfriends so I was always pretty happy. Of course, it could be that I was the bad roommate, as in more of a partier than a studier, and lived life like every day was an open house, bringing home every stray student I came across and offering up our couch as a crash pad. Sorry, roomies!
JULIA: Jenn, my freshman roommate (who is still my BFF) and I would pile our dirty clothes in front of the almost-floor-length sliding windows and let the winds howl through our room. After that treatment, any garments without noticeable stains or smells were deemed "clean" and went back in the drawers. So I can't think you living out of a laundry basket was too bad!
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I never had a terrible roomie, thank goodness. In fact, except for a brief stint in boarding school (before I was expelled!) I only had one roommate, the first semester I went away to college. Our room was a terribly awkward pie-shaped space in the university's round dorm. What were they thinking??? But she was nice and I don't remember any problems. Not that I was there much, I was too busy partying and skipping classes. You can guess that adventure didn't end well. After that, for me it was living at home and community college, then commuting to my eventual alma mater for a year. My last two years I lived alone in a little garage apartment off campus, studied all the time, and absolutely loved it. The solitary-writer gene was already in full force!
RHYS BOWEN: My college roommate and I are still good friends and meet every couple of years in England. I was always the social one, bringing in groups of friends for coffee and she was ultra shy. She led a quiet and lonely life until about five years ago when she announced she was moving in with the man she had always loved who was now leaving his wife for her. And she appeared at dinner in a slinky red dress! Talk about a surprise! After college I share a flat with three friends--still my closest friends today. A wonderful experience. The only bad roommates were when I was in Australia and dating John. These girls would help themselves to my food in the refrigerator and go through my things. I think this spurred me into rapid marriage! 
LUCY BURDETTE: I attended Princeton, the third year they accepted women-- so it was actually a hard experience. The school still had a lot of old-fashioned customs (like importing girls for parties from all-girl schools) and they had not a clue about how to help kids from very different backgrounds adjust. Given that, I was lucky in my roomie draw. We were both pre-med (she went on to a very distinguished career in medicine) and a little lost. Though she was tall and blonde and a boy magnet. And I was...not. Sometimes I would get her cast-offs from dates that didn't click. It was good to have such a close friend when feeling like a stranger in a strange land.
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My first roomie was a perfect match for me--on paper. She was from a loving midwest family, and was an English major. However . She did not like music. At all. I was on a big Judy Collins/Leonard Cohen kick (and spent one entire week in tribute living on tea and oranges), and she was not impressed. She went to sleep at about 9pm and I--didn't. I stayed up late, and cut out black light stars to glue onto our ceiling. I could feel the resentment and judgment growing. But the big rift came when we were in the same English class, and had to do a "compare and contrast" (remember?) paper on The Faerie Queen and CS Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet. After they were graded, the producer gave her a D and me an A. Which would have been contentious enough, but the professor also wrote on her paper--"you might want to check with your roommate on how to do this properly." Well, that was the end of that. Bye bye roomie. (You can see how that episode was burned in my brain.)For the rest of college, I did all I could to have. single room.
JULIA: Well, we've learned two things today: the Reds were either very lucky with roommates in college and/or were party girls. (Come to Bouchercon in Dallas and you'll see if we're still party girls!) How about you, dear readers? What were your roommate experiences like - did you get the good, the bad, or the ugly?
Red Hot News on events and sales:
Julia: The second Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne mystery, A FOUNTAIN FILLED WITH BLOOD, is on sale all this month for $2.99:
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Memories of college roommates don’t sit too well with me since my lovely roommate was a card-carrying member of the Mean Girls Society who couldn’t resist any opportunity to give me grief something, usually about why in the world was I bothering to read a book . . . .
ReplyDeleteOh Joan, do you know what happened to her?
DeleteJoan has never revealed where the roommate's body is buried. Joan, like still water, runs deep. Go, Joan!
DeleteWell, I went right on reading and studying, she went right on partying and doing whatever else was more important to her than a college education. After a semester, she was gone [presumably, she found a better party]. After that, I decided no roommate was the only way to go and I always had a single room where friends came to hang out and study [while I, being the official typist of the group, typed their papers] . . . .
DeleteOther than simply living at home with the family as I grew up, I've never had to live with anyone else. Thank goodness.
ReplyDeleteIt can be wonderful… Or, not :-)
DeleteI lucked out! My first roommate and I were sophomores on a floor of freshmen girls. Peggy had filled the room with houseplants and I learned all I know about indoor plants from her. We would play Gregorian chants while we studied as the other girls went out for midnight pizza runs.
ReplyDeleteThen I moved into a house with three other girls, two of whom I'm still in touch with. Nani taught me about astrology and I taught her about drinking. ;^) Very lucky.
Sounds like a fair trade, Edith!
DeleteRhys, that slinky red dress story… You need to use that in a book! Right? Isn’t it a Georgie thing? Someone she knew from her school days, and then…
ReplyDeleteLots of fun memories here. And those ads, Julia! Some are hilarious with today's perspective.
ReplyDeleteWhen my middle daughter was a freshman in college, I visited her during Parents' Week, and spotted the rules she and her first roommate had drawn up. I'm sure I was not meant to see them, but one of them was "No sex-having in our room."
My worst roommate situation was when I was single, and had to break a lease on an apartment with horrible neighbors. My married friends had just bought their first house, and we were all cash-strapped. They offered me the top floor, a renovated attic space with half bath, until I could recoup my lost deposit enough to move to another apartment. We shared the shower in the main bath, and I had some kitchen privileges, but I was hardly ever there to eat.
We were all friends going in, but things soon deteriorated. I had not realized how strained their marriage was, nor that their son was probably not the guy partner's. She was a waitress at a fine restaurant downtown working the dinner service, and since I also worked downtown she started using me as an excuse in order to run around on him. It took both of us awhile to tumble to this. I think I lasted there about five months. Their marriage lasted a little longer, enough that she had another son, also of dubious parentage. Since then my only roommate has been my husband and my kids, and that's plenty!
Karen, that definitely sounds like something that could fuel a novel of domestic suspense. And really, other than someone who leaves toenail clippings in the bathroom, I can't imagine worse roommates than a married couple on the fritz.
DeleteThat's a soap opera, Karen!
DeleteWhat wonderful stories! My first roommate, in a house of mostly Long Islanders was like me, a country girl from upstate NY. We got along fine for the most part and did survive the year. The next year I tried commuting from home, which did not end well. I was very lucky to get the last available room, a single, in the house where I had lived the year before. I stayed there for the duration. It was a tiny room but it worked out well.
ReplyDeleteFor my first job my roommate was a friend of a friend and that worked out very well. We are still in touch.
Judi, I think commuting from home can be very difficult if you've already left the nest for a year and are coming back. Of course, there are other things that can make it tough - traffic, losing study time, what do you do if you've got six hours between classes - but going back to the parents so soon after high school is hard (for everyone!)
DeleteAs Hank says, on paper....but it really is largely luck--I had the good, the bad, and the ugly all in one situation. As a transfer student, I lived off-campus for one semester in a roominghouse for girls. We shared one floor, one bath, one kitchen. The good--a longtime friend, the bad--a young woman who had the single room, locked her food up, and scurried about as if we might contaminate her. And the ugly, who shared my room--picked up men on the interstate and over the phone, left her dirty underwear on the floor, crawled into bed under a layer of dirty clothes, and eventually ended up in Cleveland, getting her car shot up by a jealous wife. And did I mention the times we had to go pull her drunk, naked self out of a neighbor's bed--good looking med student who did not invite her in.
ReplyDeletePicking up men on the interstate? Getting her car shot up? You may win the price for the most COLORFUL roommate, Flora!
Delete". . . and eventually ended up in Cleveland!' Getting shot up by a jealous wife just adds insult to injury. You make ending up in Cleveland sound bad enough. I love these roommate stories!
DeleteGigi, no offense intended for Cleveland--she was from somewhere in upstate New York and we kept hoping she'd go back!
DeleteI had a split. Two girls I met at Freshman Orientation during college...did not work. The girl I moved in with after leaving the triple was...insane (this is the one who literally used masking tape to divide the room, forbade me from crossing it, and put the door and room sink on her side).
ReplyDeleteSophomore year I let the university assign me a roomie and we got on very well. She was on the volleyball team and had a lot of practices/games, so we were rarely in the room together. I think we didn't see each other enough to fight.
Junior year was an apartment with five other girls. That many college-age women should not be allowed to room together.
Senior year I bolted for a single.
The Girl had a single-room in her dorm last year and is living in a 1-bedroom apartment this yearI. think she's got a better handle on things than I did.
Sounds more like luck than a better handle, Liz. I think that's whats so fascinating about roommate stories (at least from a distance;) people enter into a very intimate relationship with little or sometimes no knowledge of one another. My freshman room was a triple for the first semester; we were all assigned by computer. I'm not even sure we filled out those surveys on habits and slovenliness they use nowadays. One of the girls was a, shall we say, terrible fit. The other one is still one of my closest friends. What are the odds?
DeleteMy husband and his college roommate are still very close. They could not be more different, both in personality and background, but I think that's one of the reasons they enjoyed getting to know each other so much.
DeleteI lived in a quad freshman year with three roommates who were either breaking up with a HS boyfriend or failing a class. Lots of crying. I craved solitude, and switched to a single for the rest of my undergraduate years.
ReplyDeleteMy three kids all stayed with their freshman roommates thru college and in one case, after college. Luck of the draw.
One of my friends, attending a different college, had a roommate with such a tumultuous on again/off again relationship with the HS bf, my friend nearly flunked out because she was spending all her time as an unpaid mental health counselor. Fortunately, her parents got wind of the situation and insisted to the Powers That Be that she be moved to a different dorm. The first years of college is hard enough without having to deal with someone else's trauma.
DeleteLaughing at your stories about roommates.
ReplyDeleteThe child of freethinkers from New York sounds like a character straight out of the Three Stooges. LOL
We luck out sometimes with great roommates, and some who are not wonderful. You never know because people can give out a great first impression then you find out what the person is really like.
Some of my roommates were wonderful. Some were awful.
Diana
I think that tends to be everyone's experience, Diana, which is why there are always so many roommate stories to share. Of course, I always wonder if I was someone's terrible roommate... I hope not!
DeleteI had a mixed bag of roommates in college. I was neither a total grind nor a constant partier, and the best roomies were ones who also at least aimed for balance between work and play. Two of my assigned roomies had so little self-awareness it was difficult to live with them and impossible for them to understand the egregiousness of some of the things they did. (The worst was the one who brought a man home after a night out in the bars and barged into the room where I was sound asleep. When they jumped into bed and began to carry on (loudly) fifteen feet away, I grabbed my pillow and departed for the common room couch. My roomie acted downright mystified the next day about what she'd done wrong.)
ReplyDeleteSingle rooms were the answer, and then I became an RA and it was part of my job to mediate the roommate disputes of a whole building full of students.
Side question: Deb, are you going to fill us in on the getting kicked out of boarding school story? Inquiring minds want to know . . .
Ha, Brenda. I was fourteen and not doing well at all in public school, so my folks sent me to a private boarding school. Can I just say I was not one of the elite there? My roomie (who was the granddaughter of a former Dallas mayor) and I sneaked out one night and talked to some boys. It was just the sort of dumb thing fourteen-year-olds do, but someone tattled. I got expelled. Roomie didn't. All in all, it was an interesting experience.
DeleteOh, and I left out the part where a guy friend and I set the front pasture on fire. But it was an accident, I swear!
DeleteOkay, I was feeling VERY indignant on your behalf until you got to the burning pasture, Debs.
DeleteExpelled for chatting with boys, unfair! That little fire incident, hmmmm.
DeleteYou were smoking WHAT?
DeleteI had a roommate for about a month at a sleep-away summer theatre camp, but I lived with my mom and commuted to class all through my college years. My scholarship covered tuition but not room and board, so commuting was the affordable option. I have no roommate horror stories to tell.
ReplyDeleteI am, however, planning to monitor a situation one of the sweet kids I have mentored is walking into this fall. She is black--a super-smart, politically aware young musician from a great family--who fell in love with a dignified, conservative private college in another city. When she came back to visit over the summer, she admitted that the culture shift has been hard for her. The college is so white you need sunglasses to cut the glare, and the young women there are daughters of the entitled elite. She has friends among her fellow musicians, but in her general ed classes she has encountered some opinions that really shocked her. Now a sophomore, she will be living in a dorm suite with five other girls. She's met them all and four "seem cool" but one dropped some racist comments she apparently learned from her father. My girl is a little worried. She thinks she can handle it, but she's not sure she wants to spend her whole year being a "learning experience" for the white chick. I've promised her that I'm on call if she needs a loud white grandmother to come ream somebody a new one.
Keep us posted, Gigi! She's a great kid.
DeleteFingers crossed for her, Gigi. It's great that she has an adult advocate - she's right that her job at college isn't to provide a learning experience for backwards roommates.
DeleteJulia, I love your photos, especially the one with the girls guzzling Welch's grape juice. Yeah, right!
ReplyDeleteAnd, Hank, I don't suppose you saved that contrast and compare paper, by any chance? That I would love to have read.
The anticipatory glee for grape juice cracked me up!
DeleteIn my head canon, there's a bottle of hooch stashed under the bed, and as soon as the dorm matron leaves, they're going to use the Welch's as a mixer. Not any worse than some of the terrible drinks I had in college.
DeleteI guess I was really lucky, I always had pretty good roommates in college.
ReplyDeleteI only had one roommate, he was enough to swear me off the practice. Sleeping naked with his bedroom door open (maybe I missed his signals?). Hanging smelly cyclist gear all over the place to dry rather than wash it regularly in the laundry. Ruined a new All-Clad non-stick pan by burning food in it and then scrubbing it with a Brillo pad. Caught him scrubbing the kitchen floor with the dish sponge using his bare feet. Left dirty plates in the living room, and drunk co-workers sleeping it off on the couch.... when I moved out, he changed the lock on the storage locker and put my furniture in the hallway before the month I paid was up. So I drilled out his new lock and took my stuff, and left the busted lock on the doormat.
ReplyDeleteMy roommate experiences weren't too bad. If you didn't request a particular person to room with I think your name probably went into a hat. My freshman dorm roommate was nice enough, someone who should have joined a sorority but didn't for some reason. She dated only frat rats, recruited someone to do her roots every so many weeks, was socially active, and generous with offering to loan her friends my portable typewriter. She got a wig, sorry-a fall, for her graduation present instead of a practical typewriter. Since I kept the case locked she found she couldn't be generous after all, but it was not a tragedy. My second year I partnered up with a girl who had lived next door our freshman year. We found a private dorm to live in; we shared a bathroom with another room of two girls. All was well except we kept getting locked out of our bathroom by the other two. I got tired of having to bang on the door at night (they retired early)to get them to unlock the door. It continued until I took apart the door lock and jammed it with a paper clip so it wouldn't lock anymore. Problem solved. The second semester I had the room to myself; my roomie had academic problems. She got a job, moved into an apartment, and marked time until she got married that June to the guy I introduced her to. Third year was a semi-disaster. I joined up with 3 others from the private dorm to rent a glamourous apartment. It was meant for 5 people. Only two of us showed up come fall. We advertised for roommates; one was good. One decided to return home after just a few weeks. Eventually our nice landlady let us break the lease and we went our separate ways. I wound up in a firetrap right across the street from the football stadium with a nice, funny, smart gal who had just "found" Jesus. We were there until the start of the second semester when our buildings were condemned. Off to a nice apartment for four, with my roomie (we avoided the topic of religion), one of her Campus Crusaders for Christ, and a nice gal who needed a spot and was not in anyway associated with a religious movement. Actually we all got along! My fourth (and fifth since I changed majors)year I lived at home in another state. My youngest sister had become very ill and my parents needed the help. I commuted to Loyola Univ. of the South and finished school. My next roomie was my husband. We married straight out of college, at least for me. The Army interrupted his schooling, so he was still working on it. Looking back I would have to say I'd been fairly lucky. No serial killer roommates.
ReplyDeleteI went to our community college for a year and a half before going on to the University of Kentucky campus. My first roommate was great, but things started off with a question mark from both of us. When I arrived to the dorm with my belongings, along with my mother and sister, my roommate had already been there and deposited her things. My mother, of course, noticed a big bottle of booze sticking out of one of the girl's boxes, and being my mother, she was immediately worried that I was rooming with an alcoholic party girl. We left after organizing my stuff, and while we were gone, my roommate came back. She noticed a Bible in my things, and she wondered if she had been assigned the roommate from the holy rollers church. Well, neither of our fears were true, and we laughed about it later, after we had become friends. That roommate got married that summer, so she moved to married housing, and I got another roommate the next year. This roommate was a fun, friendly gal with a pronounced Eastern Kentucky accent, and we are still friends today. The last year of college I lived off-campus with a friend from my hometown, when I wasn't staying at my boyfriend's (now husband). So, I was lucky with the roommate situation.
ReplyDeleteSorry I'm so late responding to this.
ReplyDeleteLucy, in late winter of the semester before Princeton admitted its first women, they held a coed week. Women from nearby colleges applied to live in Princeton dorms and attend a week of classes. Princeton, of course, was trying to find out what changes to make to the physical campus to accommodate women. Those of us attending from Bryn Mawr were checking out Princeton courses and professors, to see about transferring. As I later heard it, the first two changes recommended by the visiting women were 1) improved outdoor lighting and 2)better quality toilet paper.
Both of my boys are headed off to college soon. It's hilarious to me that think of living with a complete stranger as "so weird". Then again, they shared a room for the first ten/eleven years of childhood so I guess they got used to "knowing" their roommate. Should be fun to watch!
ReplyDeleteMy first college roommate was so homesick that she didn't even get the results of her first quiz. My next went home every weekend so I din't spend a lot of time with her. Two years I roomed with a woman from my high school that worked out well. The last year we had to live off campus. I had a single room and two friends shared another in the house. They were nice but I got on better with the landlady and her dogs. It was nice to watch The Waltons with someone who lived in that period.
ReplyDeleteDeborah. Once again I’m unable to take advantage of one of your special offers because the imbedded link appears to be invalid. I clicked on your offer to read free 2 chapters of your upcoming book A Bitter Feast, but get a message at AERBOOK.COM that this page is unavailable because your book reference is not available.
ReplyDeleteThe message:
https://aerbook.com/books/A_Bitter_Feast-227179.html…
Not Found
The requested URL /books/A_Bitter_Feast-227179.html… was not found on this server.
Can you help me? Sue Ellen Reardon
Sue, try this one, and I will correct in the post as well. https://aerbook.com/books/A_Bitter_Feast-227179.html
DeleteI was probably the world's worst roomie, as I was ignorant of polite co-living. I lived with my grandparents when commuting to prep. I didn't sign up for any classes in college that started before 1:00pm. My poor roomies all changed rooms, which meant I got a huge room for a lower price. I guess I studied at the wrong hours for their comfort. I tried to work at the library, but could not stand the silence. Then boys came to the rescue, inviting me to share a room. We were the first generation of students in the UC system to be allowed (with parental permission) to live on a whatever-gender you can come up with is okay with us, hall. The only unfortunate presence was the — not kidding — Nazi hall mum, complete with swastika flag on her dresser and photos of her father in the uniform. She was a German from Brazil of course, and we were a German language hall. In desperation I studied hard and graduated very early with not very good grades. Apparently my experience made for a good grad school app essay, as I went totally ivy afterward despite my grades.
ReplyDeleteI had a roommate like you are describing, Julia. My roommate my last semester in college would be up all night writing papers. It wasn't necessarily by choice, but it did devolve into a pattern he couldn't break. We found a way to make it work, however. He was willing to try to work with me, which went a long way. And it was just for one semester.
ReplyDeleteUp until a couple of years ago, I've always had roommates. Had to have them to make ends meet. Most of them I've gotten along with well, and some of them became good friends.
However, I've had a couple of real stinkers - usually ones I invited to move in to help them out. One of the worst is the guy who had an accident on his bike a week after moving in. I helped him with surgeries, etc., even giving him rides to and from work all that summer. Fast forward a year when he is finally back on his feet, literally and figuratively, and he stops talking to me. Mind you, we are sharing a room at the time. The final straw was when he walked in, saw me sitting on the couch, and turned to look at the bookcases on the other wall as he walked directly to our bedroom. Then he got upset when I asked him to move out.