Doily Drama

I went to a small private Bible college and we were given two room apartments instead of the usual dorms. With “all that room” as the teachers put it, came five other roommates besides myself. Six females under 20 so you knew it was going to be an interesting year. I was the first to arrive and then my parents and I went out to see the city.  As they only had one day in town before going home, I stayed at their hotel the one night.  I did leave a little note on my bed, giving my name and contact info should some unforeseen emergency come up with my room. Arriving back at the apartment the next morning, I walked in to find what I can only describe as “Doily Hell.”  I opened the door and was greeted by a five foot tall poster of two little kids dressed as adults kissing. You know the kind. Not my thing, but okay. The fact that it was so HUGE, and right in the living room, is what threw me. Then I looked around.  More photos of cute little kids and bunnies and kitties and doilies. Doilies everywhere. On the table, under the dozens of scented candles that were all lit at the same time, on the kitchen counter, under the phone and on the arms of the couch.  It was a look that even my 86 year old grandmother had never chosen. It smelled like a gas station bathroom. It was a serious fire hazard.

I walked into “my” room, and looked at my bed. My things were not on it. There were doilies and pink kitties and bunnies.  My things were balled in the bottom of the closet, my dresser drawers emptied and taken up completely by this doily queen. She had covered every square inch of the dresser with doilies, heart shaped frames with pictures of little kids dressed like adults and pictures of what I had to assume was her boyfriend.  Large bowls of dry potpurri were on every flat surface. I couldn’t imagine who was going to walk through the door. Either a 90 year old college going granny or the strangest 18 year old girl I could imagine.

She was the thinnest woman I’d ever seen, was 18, from Colorado and was going here because it was “totally” where she was supposed to be.  Oh, and her boyfriend was going here.  Oh, and she used to do drugs, but he “saved” her from that.  Oh, and prostitution too.  But then he went to college last semester and yeah, she may have not eaten at all while he was gone, but she didn’t have an eating disorder.  She just didn’t eat when he wasn’t around.  Or if she didn’t speak to him in a few hours, or if he went out with friends or if she called and he didn’t answer.  And he was coming over right away, because they hadn’t seen each other in like…three hours, and she was going to ask the RA’s if they could make an exception and let him sleep there for a few nights till she got settled in, and we understood, right?