Catching up...

this week - or so it would appear.  Breakfast with my high school friend, Beth, yesterday and my college roommate, Anne Estelle, called me today.  I'm sure she hates the whole Anne Estelle thing, but I think it's cool that her name is the same as Mary Engelbreit's alter ego.  We had a lovely chat - and reminisced about a lot of good times.  Anne and I met in the fall of 1976 when we were assigned as freshman roommates at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  Her hometown is Columbia, Maryland; mine, a little further south.  Both away from home for the first time, and a little timid about everything, we got along like two peas in a pod - unfortunately, Calvin was enjoying its largest freshman class ever that year and we were blessed with a third roommate - a smoking drinker from Massachusetts.  We had both requested a non-smoking roommate and neither of us could stand it, but you try to do the best you can with what you've got.  Anne and I both had early classes and so were inclined to bathe at night to save time in the morning - that and the fact that it took all night for Anne's beautiful, waist-length hair to dry.  Our roomie, a smoldering night owl, would drag in from the bar at two smelling like the inside of an ashtray and proceed to lock herself in the bathroom between the two bedrooms in our suite and have one last drag before turning in for the night. It was a complete nightmare and we would lie awake in our beds plotting revenge.  Anne would say, "I am so fizzed - my hair is going to stink again tomorrow."  I'd chime in, "All my sweaters stink.  People think I smoke.  I could just puke."  Night after night, we would gag and complain to one another until one fateful night...  I'd been pondering what to do for days and after the first good freeze, daydreaming in chemistry class, I'd come up with a foolproof plan.  Anne was too nice to plot revenge, but not nice enough to stop me - we made a good team.  I should also mention that this nicotine-head was completely opposed to fresh air.  We'd open the window; she'd close it.  The smoke stench was bad enough, but she also had a serious addiction to Final Net.  Honestly, the girl wore so much hairspray I worried that one evening in a drunken stupor she'd light her hair instead of her cigarette.  After dinner, we bade The Smoker adieu and set about hopefully ridding ourselves of this extra person once and for all.  The facts were these:  Anne and I both had electric blankets on our beds.  Cozy and warm, even on the coldest night - or on a merely freezing night in a room with the window open.  At about ten o'clock, after we had performed our nightly ablutions and Anne had semi-dried her hair with the blow-dryer so as to avoid any potential pneumonia threat, we flung the sliding window wide open and filled the track with ice water.  We climbed under our electric blankets into toasty warm beds and tried to nap a bit before the inevitable fireworks.  We dreamed happily of clothes that did not smell like stale smoke and not being awakened at two in the morning with the careless slam of the door and the glare of the lights, to say nothing of the stench of smoking wafting from under the bathroom door.  Finally - the moment of truth had arrived.  We heard her voice in the hallway.  I could practically see Anne's hands clench the blankets in her bunk above me.  The door flew open and slammed shut.  "#%***&_#( it's cold in here," the third wheel muttered and headed into the bathroom.  I sat up, waiting.  It must have really been cold because she didn't spend too long puffing away in the powder room.  Suddenly the door opened and she appeared in her nightgown - and turned to check to see if the window was closed.  She uttered another expletive and tried to close the window.  It wouldn't budge.  I stifled a triumphant giggle.  I heard Anne moan, "Here it comes."  We didn't have to wait long.  "You )(*^#&*%&% people!  I don't (&^%^%(^ believe this!"  She grabbed the quilt off her bed and stormed out the room.  I am not sure whose room she slept in, but I was relieved that she wasn't around to see our frantic ice-chipping and blow-drying the window track in the morning when it was time to get up and get ready for class.  She moved out the end of the week.  And Anne and I roomed together happily ever after, firm believers in the eternal truth that where there's a will, there's a way.

PS Stay tuned for more adventures of Anne Estelle and Dawn...