Roommates can be fun, even if they're strangers

No, I'm not Mister Rogers. I never give my shoes that little, playful toss when I take them off. My mailman would probably beat me up if I called him Mr. McFeely. I don't even have a trolley running through my living room. (Unless the ants in there have built one while I've been at the Daily. Don't laugh, I came home from a softball game last month to see a tiny Stonehenge on my porch; I'm sure their civilization has advanced enough by now.)

But the ants and I have a problem. All of my roommates have been well, a little odd. And now, I'm living with a friend I've had since freshman year and some chick I don't even know. This is my senior year, and I'm still rooming blind.

OK, OK, before you guys come and break down my door (you know where I live, don't you?) let me say one thing. We're all adults here. I know I wasn't the best roommate either.

And now, as an adult, I'm going to whine about you all. Just like any self-respecting adult with the mentality of a seven-year-old would do.

Rick Freeman Freeman of the Press

First, of course, there's the first roommate every student has, the one assigned scientifically by the Housing Department based on the very scientific principle of Whichever Names They Felt Like Sticking Together at That Particular Moment.

According to the University's system, I was a perfect match for my roommate. And we had a lot in common. For example, both of us are male.

Other than that, we had about as much in common as Janet Reno and Fabio. (I get to be Fabio, in this one, of course.)

We realized this, and now when we see each other, we stop and chat. We get along great. But then, we kept to ourselves, mostly. And I kept a bottle of air-freshener in the closet. He did bathe regularly, an underappreciated quality in a roommate, if ever there was one. But he had a number of small eccentricities that can only be described as "a number of small eccentricities."

Sam - as I call him, because that's what everyone calls him - was a world-class bridge player. I'm not making this up. He also took writing papers seriously. His mom, clad in her purple tie-dye T-shirt, would come by and help him. Not that he wasn't smart - he was probably the smartest person in East Quad. But I beat him at chess.

Sophomore year, I roomed with four hallmates from the dorm. After living with each other for approximately four minutes, we realized we couldn't stand each other.

Occasionally we would have a good time with each other, but only if it was too cold to go outside.

None of them were particularly bad, we had our good moment. Alright, there were actually three. But we all valued our own space, our own lives.

OK, there was one roommate I could stand. Gary.

He's the roommate everyone needs. He has everything. He loans it freely. And he was 21 before I was, which helped when we went to Busch's.

He has this vinyl recliner that is the most study-time-sucking object known to man. He has a 95-inch TV (OK, I'm exaggerating, but it's really big.) He has a refrigerator. He has a Jeep. All of which are in my apartment now. (Except the Jeep, but that's another story - even though he's gone. His microwave would be there too, but he lost it.

Yes, he lost his microwave. Hasn't everyone done that once or twice?

Gary can be a little scatterbrained. But there's no better person to procrastinate with. Or mooch stuff from (I think I still owe him ten bucks and a microwave.)

But I can't be sure my new roommate will be like this. She's from New York, and likes theater. Which explains why my old roommate - the one who's leaving - refers to her as "the theater chick."

I've already found out that she's from New York, doesn't expect to be in the apartment much, and knows a classmate of mine from high school and grade school.

But does she have any cool, big-ticket consumer goods I can use when she's not home? Or any cool power tools? Gary was great for this, too.

Will she come to my room to close my door if the stereo's too loud, the way one ex-roommate of mine did, leaving her own door wide-open? Will her significant other come stink up our bathroom (yes, this happened) while we're watching the Michigan State game?

See, I shouldn't have to deal with this. I'm a senior, and (probably) leaving here in eight short months. I'm supposed to know my roommates by now. Mornings, I'm supposed to be able to walk around my apartment in my underwear - scratching myself, if I feel so inclined - and not worry in the least who sees me.

I mean, with a new roommate moving in, it'll be at least a week before I can do that.

But maybe that's one of the things I'll miss about college. Not so much the scratching - I can do that anywhere - but the way complete strangers are accepted blindly. You go to Michigan? OK, I guess I can trust you enough to live with you.

This doesn't happen elsewhere. You can't get a spiffy new job moving numbers from one side of a piece of paper to the other at some faceless office tower in New York and say: You and I, we live in New York together, sure let's get a place.

Sure.

Think about this, think about randomly living with a coworker (or a New Yorker) out of nowhere. No way. Wouldn't even think about it.

But in college, it's somehow OK. Solely because we go to the same school, Joanna - or whoever she is - and I are roommates. We will share a kitchen, a living room, ants, a bathroom and the strange room upstairs that's kind of like a hallway. Maybe she'll figure out what to call it.

I don't care. I just want to relish every last moment of a time in my life when I get to be with such bizarre, wonderful people. A time where any day can turn into anything else, and there is no routine.

I wasn't sure how college would treat me. My guess was like I stole its girlfriend. But when I'm gone, and in the "real world" I'll look back.

And it'll seem like the land of make-believe.

- Rick Freeman is a Daily sports writer. He can be reached via e-mail at rickfree@umich.edu.

09-08-98