Chris, Part 1

For reasons I do not completely understand, I have been struggling to write this particular story for a few weeks. I am still not sure it clearly states the story and my feelings about it.

Chris was a roommate I inherited my Senior year in College. She was a "friend" of one of our roomies from the previous year. Our roomie had decided to live with her BF that year instead of us. He was really cute and good to her, so it was hard to take exception with her ditching us. Our ex-roomie had committed to the lease and so arranged her replacement in the form of "Chris".

Chris (not Chrissie or Christy) was an incoming freshman and this was apparently her first foray from home. As the only senior and the only person over 21 in the apartment with 2 juniors and a freshman, I was automatically promoted to "Grandma" and beer runner. What a joy that all turned out to be.

At first Chris seemed pleasant enough. She was fairly reserved, picked up after herself and seemed to stay out of everyone elses stuff....or at least mine anyway which was mostly jeans and would have have fit her like socks on a rooster.

Then she started bringing home strays.

I am not talking about stray dogs and cats. I am talking about stray guys. This was 1975 and most of the dogs and cats I knew had better grooming habits than some of these guys. Most were college students. All of them would sooner or later (mostly sooner) spend the night. Apartment walls are cheap and when you work and study at late hours while attending morning classes, the 3 AM frolics get old real fast. By mid October I was homicidal. My other 2 roomies were merely peeved and kept telling me to "chill". Easy for them to say, they did not keep the hours I had to. Being regularly asked to make "Booze Runs" did not help. By November, all of us were looking up the definition of "justifiable homicide".

She survived Thanksgiving and we made it to the 6 week intersession at Christmas without committing any crimes of violence. During the intersession, it was just Chris and me since our roomies went home for the break. Thankfully, so did most of the strays. I finally began to learn some things about her. She is the eldest of 5 children. Her father suicided when she was 5. One of her sisters shares the same father, the other 3 siblings all have different fathers. Her mother never finished High School. Their extended family was all in Missouri. To her knowledge, she was the only member of her family to ever attend College.

As I learned these things, my annoyance at her behavior remained unabated. I did however, find myself experiencing some of her angst and it was not pleasant. I felt small.

At the end of intersession all the grades were posted and Chris found herself on academic probation and life got harder,,,,,,,,and easier.

next post....the rest of the story