Back to College

A couple weeks ago, I had the privilege to attend JMU's Content Academy for 6-12 English.  It was a week-long conference that met daily for six hours.  During the week, I stayed in a dorm and ate at the meal hall.  It was the closest I'd been to being back in college, and I loved it. 

The Sunday before, a colleague and I drove up and hauled all our stuff into our tiny dorm rooms.  We were the only divas with minifridges.  I'd also brought my Keurig.  I re-arranged the room into something bearable for the week--even though we each had our own rooms, there were 2 beds, closets, dressers, desks and chairs in each.  I'd forgotten exactly how tiny dorm rooms can be!

When my colleague came to visit, she was jealous when she discovered that I had a bathroom attached to my room.  She had to use the hallway bathroom.  "My" bathroom had a stall with the toilet, a sink and large mirror, and a shower.  On the other end of the bathroom was a door--apparently this was a Jack and Jill bathroom.  I wondered aloud who was on the other side of the door.  Tracy answered, "Me!"

We opened the door and I met my bathroom-mate.  She was from another county.  We decided to lock the doors if we took a shower.  A few minutes later, we realized in horror that we could lock from inside the bathroom, but not from inside our respective rooms.  We didn't know each other!  How alarming for a total stranger to have total access to my stuff when I wasn't there.  Tracy felt the same way.

I encouraged her to google "Catina Chapman"/run a background check.  She laughed about it.  I was glad to have her five minutes later when I locked my key in the room.  This Tracy seemed OK, and I was sure she'd have a difficult time lugging a minifridge across the campus of JMU unnoticed.  Also, she didn't appear to be my size, and she dressed better than I did.  My clothes were likely safe. 

The next day, she saw me leaving lunch and called me over, laughing.  Apparently the many wings of dorms on the East side of campus all look the same from the inside.  She'd gone to the wrong one, opened "her" unlocked door, and noticed all her stuff gone.  She'd gone through the bathroom, and noticed all my stuff gone as well!  She'd gone out to the hall where she encountered some passers-by who assured her she was NOT in Potomac B.

I laughed, too, then countered, "Admit it, Miss. Tracy.  For five seconds you'd wished you'd googled 'Catina Chapman', and wondered how I'd made off with all your stuff."