I was wandering around campus this week-end in search of a campus dining establishment that was open for business when I happened to overhear a conversation. My eavesdropping skills being what they are, I will piece together the crux of the chatter here:
Student One: "So, I hear you have a really sweet apartment!"
Student Two: "Well..."
Student One: "It must be great to have your own kitchen and your own bathroom. I'm living in a tiny single in Hitchcock. It sucks."
Student Two: "I was kinda thinking that way. I mean, it's summer, and I really wanted to try something different. A friend of mine nabbed a sublet and begged me to room with her, so I'm doing that."
Student One: "How neat! I wish that I could find a place to live off campus."
The glamour! The pizzazz! The absolute, immense glory of Hanover rental housing! O leaky faucets and moldy showers, I sing your praises on high, lifting heavenward your broken baseboards and carnivorous dust-bunnies; it is you, o sagging, suffering couch, and you, blessed blasted stuck windows, I have longed for all my life. Yes, having one's own apartment is just darned downright poetic.
I can sympathize with the poor banished child of Topliff, wheezing up three flights of stairs only to squeeze into a shoe box-sized single, exhausted and unable to sleep as the blare of throbbing hip-hop threatens paper-thin walls at an ungodly hour. I feel badly for that lonely student who gingerly treads between muck and mung in the dormitory kitchen, almost reluctant to rummage through the refrigerator seeking last week's leftover Ben and Jerry's. I myself survived a year in the Choates, my friends, and I'm sure that most of you out there have even more lurid tales than I. As you sit at your desk daydreaming, trying not to notice your roommate's breath on the back of your neck, (funny thing -- your roommate is sitting on the opposite side of the room) great visions of the Xanadu that is rental housing are more than tempting.
Camp Dartmouth is in our veins these days, and the lure of off-campus splendor looms large -- check out all of the "N/As" in the DND phone directory! I myself caved in this summer. "Sure," I rationalized, "It's summer, and it's my chance to live on the edge. Live free. Pretend to be grown-up." And anything beats the exploding bathroom fixtures in the Lodge. I wanted a place to hang my hat. I wanted a place to escape. I wanted a place big enough to warrant having my own waffle iron.
I took a huge bite out of a rather stale reality sandwich. I was handed the fruit of knowledge. Strike that cliche -- Life (personified) stuffed the fruit of knowledge (read: illusion) up my nose, ripped off my head and bowled a 180 with it.
For one thing, my moving into a sublet this summer has been a banana waltz on the highway to hell (to put it lightly). You know you're ready to smash those rose-tinted spectacles when you're stuck in a loft apartment, staring up at frightening boxes piled to the ceiling, pouring sweat, and waiting for the landlord to arrive with your key. I almost threw my back out moving furniture. I think I bruised 40 percent of my body in various accidents while maneuvering around mounds of stuff. If there were space enough on these pages, I'd have the Energizer Bunny beat, hands down. Perhaps I complain too much.
Truth is, I rather miss having the Office of Residential Life for a landlord. I know that as long as I'm in a dorm, everything gets repaired faster than I can blink. It's almost like Big Brother. I don't need to mess with rent checks or fix anything by myself. And, best of all, I can just go downstairs and know that there is going to be a washer and a dryer, and that three hours and five dollars will buy me clean laundry whenever I feel like it.
It's tempting to look around this summer and think, "Wow! Rental housing is really spiffy!" Just wait until the electricity bills come -- or, better yet, the heating bills in the winter! Don't itch to live off campus yet. You'll be doing that all of your life after you leave Hanover. This might be your last and only chance to experience four years of dorm-bonding, hall soccer, late-night conversation with randoms and running around campus looking for a free VCR. If you have that itch, apply for affinity housing and explore your options. Just know that "having your own place" might really not be as glamorous as it sounds.
