Ginger Mixed with Spice Is Not Very Nice

Ginger Mixed with Spice is Not Very Nice

When I found out last spring that I would be spending my first year at Southwest Minnesota State University in Sweetland Hall, I couldn’t have been more ecstatic. Can you blame me? With bigger rooms, air conditioning, an (almost) private bathroom, and an awesome roommate, Jane*, Sweetland seemed like the ideal place to be. Unfortunately, the reality of what I was about to get into slapped me across the face the day I moved in.
It wasn’t the roommate (Jane is fantastic), it wasn’t the air conditioning (can’t complain about that), it wasn’t the bathroom (it’s an almost private bathroom!), and it wasn’t the bigger room (you can always use extra space). It was one of the girls who shared the bathroom with us, our “bathroommate.”   She was a little bit, well, psychotic. Obviously I didn’t come to this realization on the first day, but it didn’t take very long before I was convinced that the girl needed professional help.   For starters, she called her mom…every hour. And it wasn’t a quick “Hi/Hello” deal. No, she would have extensive, loud, and unnecessary conversations with her mom at least seven times a day. How do I know this? Well as I previously stated, Ginger* was very loud; I’m pretty sure you could hear her shrieking voice anywhere within a five mile radius.
Because she was so loud (and because I have a slight eavesdropping problem), Jane and I could hear the content of her conversations. At first they were about the room, freshman activities, canned peaches (she had a strange obsession with them), etc., but as the weeks progressed, the discussions with her mom became less about college life, and more about her sophomore roommate, Alyssa*.   Ginger talked about how Alyssa stole all her food, constantly had strange boys in their room, and wasn’t welcoming. All the aforementioned are fallacies. My roommate and I had socialized with Alyssa on many occasions and we concluded that she was one of the nicest people anyone...