Perfect Strangers

Alumni and current students tell us about their roommates – the ones who began as complete opposites and grew to be best friends, and the ones they ’d just as soon forget.

She Wore Hot Rollers, I Wore Wet Hair

My first roommate was Laurie Lewis from Aiken, South Carolina. We lived on the third floor of Compton. Right below us lived Lorraine Wilder and her roommate, along with the biggest, baddest stereo with killer speakers that blasted "Brick House" at any given moment.

As Laurie and I unpacked our suitcases, I remember thinking that I had a ton more wool sweaters, big coats, L. L. Bean boots, mittens, and the like. She had all kinds of lightweight clothing, fashion boots, and a nice trench coat. It was summer, after all. Then January 1978 rolled around, with the blizzard of the century and waist-high snow. We trudged down to Freedlander’s and some other store downtown and bought Laurie some "real" Ohio clothing.

Laurie was a very smart geology student. She got up early for her 8 a.m. classes to use her hot rollers and stuff. I rolled out of bed at about 7:45, took a shower, and arrived at 8 a.m. French class (ugh!) with wet hair. We did our own things, had our own friends, but were compatible roommates. We even played flute and violin duets in our room.

I learned that year that you didn’t have to be best friends with your roommate. You just had to figure out how to live together.

– Julie LaFrance Funk ’81, Maumee, Ohio

Sleepwalking and Foreign-Language Dreams

Joe Anderson ’01 and I got off to a rough start during my sophomore year. My sleeping patterns drove him crazy. First, I had trouble getting up for my 8 a.m. class. My alarm would ring for a long time before he would curse, hit the snooze, and tell me to get up. He must have hit the snooze three or four times before I got up. That went on for a few weeks before I adjusted to waking so early. But he missed his morning classes a couple of times and wasn’t pleased.

However, I supplied late-night comic relief. We decided that I should sleep in the bottom bunk, which turned out to be a very good idea. I had a tendency to sleep walk. One memorable night I stood over his bed, woke him up, and really freaked him out.

I also talked in my sleep quite frequently. Once, I put on a fantasy language lesson by translating simple phrases from English into German and then into Spanish. (Coincidentally, that was my first dream in German, and it won me a German chocolate bar in Dick Figge’s 8 a.m. 101 class). The next day I thought it was a little peculiar that Joe kept saying, "Hola, me llamo Jose," which translates into, "Hello, my name is Joe." But I didn’t stop at translation. I would recite movie clips, college football trivia questions, ESPN Sports Center catch-phrases, and a variety of intelligible and unintelligible bits of knowledge, not to mention recounting events that had happened earlier in the day or week.

– Dan Dean ’02, Olmsted Falls, Ohio

Friendship as Deep as Our Laundry Piles

The summer before my freshman year, I got this slip in the mail telling me I would be living in a triple, who my roommates were, and where they were from. Both of them were from Ohio. I was nervous because I was from Delaware (the state, not Delaware, Ohio). I tried to contact them, but the hectic end-of-summer crunch didn’t allow for much spare time to chat, so I never really got to know them ahead of time.

As we were moving in, I remember seeing all of our belongings and wondering how in the world we were going to fit it all into our room. I am a generally tidy person. I bit my nails watching my new roommates "pack" their things into the dressers. No folding the clothes, no hanging up sweaters, just tossing it all in and slamming the drawer shut with a little hip action.

But somewhere between jamming all of our stuff into the tiny drawers and crying hysterically as our parents left us with strangers, something clicked. From day one we were inseparable. We have continued to form a deep friendship. Sure, it took some getting used to, having someone else’s dirty underwear lying on your floor. The first time we walked in on each other singing "Under the Sea" at the top of our lungs was a little odd. But even through the mess of a room – and by mess I mean "biohazard" – we learned to adjust and complement each other perfectly. By the end of the year, I didn’t know what was mine or theirs...everything was "ours," and I loved it that way.

We lived together the following year in what was an even smaller room. The trash piles only grew bigger, but so did our love for each other as friends. These girls will be my "roommates" for life, regardless of how far apart we are geographically. I don’t know whom to thank for putting the three of us together, but I know that because of these two girls, my life has changed.

– Heather Hale ’06, Frankford, Delaware

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