An email to a roommate MIA

Dearest Katie,

I have to be honest with you.  Ever since you left, we've had a hole in our hearts.  We were afraid that our apartment would be forever lacking one, and we couldn't bear living like that.  But then, something marvelous happened!  We replaced you!  Hannah is great, but after a few days we knew that she would never fill that hole in us created when you went to Jerusalem.  This led us to think:  Is Katie the reason for that hole?  We have replaced you, you'd think the hole would be full.  But no, after a few weeks thinking on the matter, we discovered the real reason for the hole: Zac Efron.  He's gone, Katie.  You dragged him out of our home, and we miss him terribly. Hannah doesn't replace him the same way she does you.  We needed another "Zac Efron"-esque roommate.  And we needed him fast.


That being said, it was Jessie's birthday yesterday!  We had a party and balloons and cake and the whole shibang.  It might be worth mentioning that it was Tyler Nicholas' birthday as well.  Have you ever met Tyler's sister, Sarah?  I've only met her once, but she's fantastic.  In fact, she printed out ginormous pictures of Tyler and hung them up in the halls of Building 4 so that anyone passing by would be bombarded with his smiling face, with text on the picture announcing it was his special day!  


It is now that our two stories combine.  It is here that I feel I must also warn you.  It has been far too long since we've seen you, Katie.  Like, a whole two weeks!  You may have forgotten.  Katie, I beg you to remember that we are the kind of people who would keep a bottle of urine in our fridge until it starts to freeze and turn to slushy pee.  We are the kind of people who get very excited over a new product known simply as "Handerpants."  And yes, Katie.  We are the kind of people who take full size pictures of other people's boyfriends and hang them on the walls of our apartment.  Especially if said pictures are this one:

Yes.  T-Nick is in the house.  Specifically OUR house.  And though he may not be a celebrity like Zac, you've got to admit, we've definitely got the next best thing.


Hope all is well with you and yours!  Have a wonderful day.  And please, try your hardest not to miss us too much.  Crying like that is just embarrassing.

-Sara

Hot feet. The opposite of cold feet.

Marina's family is full of good people.  They think of her often.  Many times, they randomly send her money.  Other times, they randomly send her other things.  Like entire sets of dishes--plates, saucers, more different large plates, and bowls.  Oh, and teacups.  What dish set would be complete without 10 teacups?  None, I tell you!  Although Marina was graciously accepting of the two ton gift, a small problem arose.  And by small, I mean, you know.  Not so small.  We have a little less than 0 space in our kitchen cupboards (plus, come on Marina's family.  If we didn't already have dishes by now, we would have been eating like cavemen for months.  Cut us some slack.  We only did that for a few weeks).  Where were we going to put the mass amounts of dishes that had fallen into our possession?  Who knows?

But if you know us, you know that we are innovative human beings.  We found a small space on the shelf above our cupboards where we could stack all the dishes.  So we began.  The shelf, as I mentioned, is above the cupboards.  Aka, it's high.  And we are not at all high.  In height or drugs.  Which is unfortunate.  So in order to get the dishes up there, I climbed barefoot onto the counter and stood on the stove while Marina handed me the many dishes that were soon to call that shelf home.

All was going well, and we were very proud of ourselves for being so brilliant.  *Enter Tim, our FHE dad.*  We obviously don't go to FHE enough, or he would know to expect sights like this from us.  Let's be honest, standing on the stove is not the weirdest thing any of us has done.  Or the most dangerous.  One time Katie set a piece of paper on fire and then proceeded to carry it directly to the trashcan, which happened to be full of flammable materials.  Good thing the rest of us were able to put that fire out before it started, or we might have had an amazing blog post plus a less amazing law suit.  But I digress.

Tim began to stare up at us, with a mix of sheer amazement and concern.  He offered us a step stool in an effort to get me off the stove, but we were content and politely declined.  We continued using our amazing assembly line skills, until I heard Tim say, "Is the stove on?"

Without turning to face him, I looked at Marina and said, "Yeah, could you turn that off now?  It's getting kind of uncomfortable."  Tim's face was priceless.

I think I'm only good at thinking of one-liners when I'm being judgmental.  Keep that in mind.  If I'm ever able to think of a funny one-liner right when it's needed, you're being judged.  Or I'm just extraordinarily witty that day.  You decide.  Do what your heart tells you.

Quietly Disruptive Saints

Sometimes, we aren't the most engaged people in Sunday School.  We fall asleep, we play games on our kindles, we doodle and write various notes to each other.  But at least we find ways to entertain ourselves without disrupting others, right?  It's the thought that counts....  Ok, not my best excuse, just roll with it.  Today, Katie and Marina and I wrote a story together to keep us awake.  We each wrote one word and then passed it the the next person.  I started with "Dear," and then Marina went, and then Katie.  I tell you this so if you see a particularly strange or concerning word, you can use your math and pattern skills to determine which of us is the culprit.  Or, you know, not.  That would be an incredible waste of your time.  Go make us some cupcakes instead.


Dear Prudence,

Don't forget about th'Alamo!  Everyone will kill small indigenous Irish elephants, unless Batdog viciously intervenes.  Should the battle prove lasting, gather all bears.  They always attack enemies, hurling hula hoops toward medium sweaters, bursting bubbles, and cinderblocks.  Luckily, bears are very susceptible to brainwashing.  Unluckily, they tend to have short-term attention spans.  It seems that you only benefit if you curl Elizabeth's limbs.  Weird.  Though dolphins inevitably revolt, bears are essentially victims of the dolphins.  Grotesque conspiracies arise due to widespread elephantitis.  Sick specimens are transported due to contaminated blood.  Avoid drinking unbleached blood.  It causes telekinesis, but also leprosy.  When hallucinations end, grab your compass.  North is bad.  Run East, but only if bears limp with elephantitis.  The sunrise signals safety.  Roll left if moss grows under walrus graves.  Roll backwards determinedly.  Don't jump diagonally, else incite the wrath of superhuman children.  They smell like rotten rutabagas and mushrooms, beating acidic pulp into orange sippy-cups.  Obviously bears enjoy pulp-free OJ, thus superhuman children torture them with forced pulpy OJ.  Luckily children aren't able to escape if there are cookies.  Trapping them is simple, especially when oreo's are available.  Remember to remember the Alamo.

Love,
The Hunchbacks.

I'm good at breaking and entering. Or others are just bad at locking doors.

Our building, good ol' Glenwood Number 4, is the furthest one from campus.  It's so far!  Once I even get to the Glenwood parking lot I have to walk past 3 buildings just to get to ours.  Sometimes my subconscience gets impatient, and I become sure it can't be that far.  So I unconsciously turn into the third building and go into the matching apartment there.  The first time this happened was during the first week of school.  We were still unpacking, and there were boxes and dishes and misc. items all over the kitchen. We all left that morning vowing that we would organize when we got home.  Well, when I walked into the apartment after school, everything was clean and tidy, and there was even a vase of flowers on the kitchen table!  I froze, thinking to myself, "Wow!  My roommates have been busy!  I wonder who got the flowers!"  As I continued to walk through the entry way, however, something felt off.  The couches were in different spots, and the decorations that we had haphazardly put on the wall that morning had disappeared.  That's when it hit me.  This was not the apartment I was looking for.  I quickly exited that apartment and shut the door, then walked out of the building like nothing had happened.  When I finally got to our building and entered our real apartment, there were the boxes and dishes and a distinct absence of flowers in a vase.  Home, sweet home.

This has happened numerous times since then.  You would think that I would learn that we live in building 4.  Actually, no, let's be real here.  I'll never learn that, but you would think that the owners of the apartment I keep walking into would learn to lock their door.  I've met them now, they're very nice.  They were pretty convincing when they pretended to understand why I can't figure out where I live, even after 3 months.  I'm sure we'll soon be on first name basis, and then they can give all my information to the psych ward and have them come pick me up.  They know where I live and everything.  So, if one day I just up and disappear, I'm either at the matching apartment one building over, or in the psych ward.  Either way, please come get me.

BYU Addictive Substances

We take what we can get.  And we abuse it heavily.  At the moment, all of us have an incredibly unhealthy obsession with this song:

Skip to 1:59.  Trust me.

The effects are borderline inappropriate.  It's like Ecstasy, but you won't get kicked out of school for listening to it.  Musical Ecstasy.  Yes.

Join us...... It's fun..... You know you want to...... Live a little..... YOLO.

Dance shoes off the Black Market

Yes.  So sketch.

So, here are my new character shoes for folk dance:

**Disclaimer: These are not actually my legs.  I found them on the internet.  I love the internet.... I claim no right to these legs.  No copyright infringement was intended.  The right to these legs remains with the owner, whoever she (or I guess it could be a really strange 'he') may be**

I finally got them today after procrastinating and somehow getting away with not having them last year.... but I finally did have to get them.  $56.  Guys, I have a somewhat expensive hobby.  But that's not even the worst part.  The worst part was going to get them.

So, folk dance is pretty political, in that you can't even try out for the higher level teams unless you have the right shoes.  Not just character shoes, the right character shoes.  But no one is allowed to tell you where to get them.  If they were to tell you a certain store that sold the right character shoes, then other places could sue BYU and say that they are favoring that store.  So, legally, they aren't allowed to tell you who sells them.  The politically correct answer when faced with the question is, "oh, you know, you just get them around..."  You have to know who to ask--who is exempt from the law, and can give you this secret information. 

I ended up finding out where they were sold through a friend who had been on one of the top teams.  You'll never guess where you go to get them.  A tuxedo shop.  Of course, right?  It's a small shop--and I mean really small.  The shop is tucked in the corner of a shared business complex with a tiny sign.  It's owned by the head of the folk dance department's husband.  But technically he's not allowed to sell them, so he keeps them in the back room.  And when you buy them, you have to use cash or check--no credit card.  Too many legal issues. 

So here's how it went down.  I kept my ears open for mentions of people who might have access to valuable information.  I would track those people down and hope for a more specific answer than the usual "oh, you just find them around..."  Eventually I was able to get the name "Perfectly Suited by Garth."  Then the trouble was finding it.  I went down University Avenue until I was around the right place, and went into an old salon/tattoo shop.  Some one noticed me and said, "Nice weather we're having, isn't it?"  I answered, "Yes, but I always carry an umbrella."  Apparently those were the secret words, because then they told me to go down the hall to the back of the store and enter the second door on my right after knocking four times in quick succession.  I did so, and an old man let me in.  "I'm assuming you're not here to buy a tux," he said.  I then told him I was there to buy dance shoes, and he took me into the back room of his already "back room" shop.  I tried on the shoes, found some that fit, and then paid for them in cash.  As I left, I had the strange sensation that I had better keep a look out for cops, but without looking too guilty.  I was smuggling drugs guys.  Or something like that.  Dance shoes off of the Black Market.  Sketch.

i'm too tired to title this.

if you know us or follow our blog, you might be familiar with the urine bottle debacle. now this is a little outdated, but we all assume someone else will blog about group experiences and then no one actually does it for weeks. so this post is the continuance of our prank war shenanigans.

when i left off, leah had messed around with our room, and it was our turn for revenge.

saturday night following the long weekend incident, we took Jorge to the creamery where i purchased 216 plastic cups. leah likes to stay up late watching animal videos on youtube and italian movies on netflix, so we decided to wait until the following morning to really smerf her.

keep in mind that we have church at 1:30, so we are accustomed to sleeping until noon on sundays. the sacrifices we make... we woke up at nine in the morning to mess with leah. the plan was to stack plastic cups on top of each other in her doorway in such a manner that she would be rendered unable to leave the room.

to make sure she wouldn't just godzilla her way out and rampantly rip the whole thing down, every other layer of cups had water in them. it took us about 40 minutes and like 150 cups to create this masterpiece:

nearly six feet of glorious shenanigans.

and here is her very tired reaction:

think of the possibilities!

ok first: possibilities is a deceptively hard word to spell.

second: for some funtertainment, smerf the picture provided here.

now onto more pressing issues: i think i control time now. or something. when i tried publishing a post about a week ago, a notice (the one in red/yellow in the right corner) appeared.

HOW DOES TIME NOT EXIST?! i understand daylight savings (kind of. i use the term "understand" very loosely here) and spring forward and whatnot (ok i totally get confused by daylight savings, but it's ok because i have great roommates and family who explain it to me). so i guess, in theory, this hour is just gone. but that kind of blows my mind. and somehow, when i try to comprehend the idea of an hour just not existing, the only thing i can think of is that i should be taking advantage of this non-hour. THINK OF THE CRIMES I COULD COMMIT!

officer: "where were you from of 1am and 3am on sunday, march eleventh?"

me: "well at one, i was in my room writing a blog post. and at three i was still in my room, sleeping."

officer: "and what about two o clock?"

me: "it's daylight savings, sir. there was no two o clock."

officer: "ah, well that seems like a sound alibi. on your way, then."

and that's how i successfully robbed the candy factory downtown that is never open when we try to visit it. without even lying! try having normal operating hours, guys, and maybe i wouldn't hypothetically rob you of all your delicious sweets and treats. your call.

The Rules

Several months ago we decided that, just to simplify things, the four of us would only hate people as a group. And it really did make things easier for a while. Every once in a while, one of us would just announce, oh by the way, we hate _____ now. And so we would. It's almost always a man. Make of that what you will. It never lasted very long though; we just don't have the commitment for long-term hatred.

Yesterday, though, things got complicated. It all started when Katie and Jessie asked Sara and I to save them seats in church. We did, but they were stolen a couple of minutes later. This evidently ended our friendship. And since they hated us, we soon realized that WE were obliged to hate us. We wallowed in self-loathing for a couple of hours before we were forgiven. But it got worse. Evidently, during our brief seperation, Katie and Jessie began planning for the Civil War. They started recruiting boys for their team. When they had recruited Alex, and Michael supported us, we suddenly realized that we all hated both of them. So, naturally, we spent the rest of the afternoon asking people which side they would support. No matter what they said, we responded, "Good. We hate you now." Many people were confused. There was no correct response. Except for what Asa sent, which consisted of just this picture:

There's no way to argue with that.

Our Unofficial Moonlighting

So, as you have recently been informed, our fridge is not a fridge. Because of this problem, we don't use our "fridge" very often. Thus, things we do put in there usually get forgotten and abandoned to die a slow and painful death. This is the case with a half full bottle of Martinelli's Apple Sparkling Cider. It's been there since about the third week of fall semester. It's been about 4+ months. The discovery of it's existence led us to question whether or not it was safe to drink. It had, after all, been sitting, opened and unsealed, in a dark and cool place for many months.

So of course the only logical thing to do is consult google on effective procedures when attempting to ferment Martinelli's Sparkling Cider. Turns out, according to the internet, we have succeeded in making our own alcohol! Screw hoarding secret caffeine, come to our place for something even better that will really get the party smerfing. Or it may perhaps make you really sick and die. We're not really sure. Someone should donate their pet to us for animal testing.* We might even pay you for your time. But probably not. Don't count on it.

*Some side effects your pet may experience once you donate them to the cause may include: headaches, nausea, bloating, confusion, loss of sight in the left eye, abnormal dreams, weight loss, weight gain, decreased sexual desire or ability, diarrhea, dizziness, drowsiness, nervousness, dry mouth, fever, chills, muscle aches, increased sweating, loss of appetite, runny nose, sore throat, weakness, yawning, or sudden death.

How To Obtain A Forbidden Party Room

A new semester has begun and that means new hall-mates. Several people have moved out of our hall; however, we have only regained a few. It has come to our attention that we have an empty room in our midst. When someone with very little personal space is presented with an unused space (that just takes a little deviousness to obtain), they are driven crazy with the idea that it is going to obvious waste. We have come to the conclusion that we MUST at all costs get into this room. There were several plans we concocted before coming across the winning idea:

Failure #1: Trying to move into the room. Not all the way of course. We simply tried to switch rooms on the internet so that it would register us as an occupant. Then, go to the Cannon Center, say we got locked out, they look it up, oh look! it's our room. That didn't work. For some reason the room is completely unavailable. No one can get in it. Extremely inconvenient.
Failure #2: Trying to pick the lock. Just so you know, YouTube videos lie! You can not just simply wiggle your paperclip around and BAM! your lock pops open....no....We sat for maybe twenty minutes "wiggling" the paper clips around with absolutely no success. Moving on.

Failure #3: Master Keys. We figured maybe the Cannon Center doesn't keep separate keys for every room, so they would just have a master key. It would make sense. If kids didn't know they were getting a master key, there would be no problem. So Katie went and asked for a key to their room and then attempted to open the door. It was not a master key. Next.

Failure #4: Fake Out. Since they ask us what our room is when we ask for a key, maybe they don't know and it isn't registered in their computer. Unfortunately, the computer is smarter than us. When I said I needed a key for 2113, the attendant gave me a funny look and asked if I meant 2118. Of course I did- it's just been a long week. We had to sit around the corner for five minutes because we didn't feel like walking all the way back only to return a few minutes later. Fail.

Failure #5: Kicking the door down. It would be a tad too obvious. Plus...we just weren't able to.

Failure #6: Excessive Pleading with the door....'nuff said.

Finally we have come to our winning scheme! If I do say so myself, this was quite brilliant and well put together. It may even blow your smerfs out of the water. This will take quite some explaining. I hope you are ready for this:

Winning Scheme: (this is what should've happened) First an I.D. card was slid extremely far under the door. An RA was retrieved. She opens the door. Person 1 goes in to get the card. Person 2 distracts RA by asking her a question, successfully pulling her away from the door. Person 3 sneaks in and hides in the wardrobe. Everybody walks out, RA thanked and gone, person 3 opens the door.

Instead, this is how it really happened: We retrieved the RA. She was very interested in how it happened and how the card got so far into the room. She opened the door, but refused to move from it. Person 2 approached, but RA continued to stay in position prohibiting Person 3 from sneaking into the room. As Person 1 walked out of the room, a magnet was secretly slipped over the key hole. Despite the fact we were sure she would see, even as she looked to turn out the lights, it went unnoticed. Later, we covered the key hole with clear tape to make it less obvious.

And that my friends is how you are able to obtain a party room in which you can learn the Hannah Montana Hoedown Throwdown in. My recommendation? Skip steps 1-6 and proceed right to the last. It will save you several hours on what once was a Saturday night with many possibilities. I wish you success in all your future devious endeavors! -Jessie

and that's how we got our trashcan privileges revoked.

let me preface this enormously long post with this simple question: what are giant trash cans for... if not dumping trash into? with that in mind, what follows is the long tale of how we were banned from trashcans.

in each room, we have small trashcans, which obviously need to be emptied occasionally. rather than trek out to the dumpster once a week, i take my trash to the giant trashcan in the communal bathroom. midway through the semester, a friendly notice was posted, reminding us to take our trash to the official dumpster. although i thought it was absurd (our bathroom doesn't stock paper towels, so presumably the only trash to be thrown away is toilet paper wrapping, so why not dump our garbage in it?) sara took over trashcan duties for a while, and i didn't worry about it. until the trashcan disappeared.

on a tuesday, i dumped my garbage in the bathroom trash. on thursday, the trashcan was gone, and this was in its place.

immediately, i panicked and assumed i was to blame. i devised a plan in which i would take the sign down, hope for the cleaning staff to forget and then steal a garbage can from another bathroom and leave the sign in its stead.

what i found was that ALL of the trashcans were gone. i filled sara in, and we decided to take the signs. we couldn't leave empty handed.

two days later, sara texted me, alerting me of new signs. obviously, we had to take them. they were posted with significantly more tape, and after ripping the first one off, we discovered this:

let me say this: NO ONE GUILTS ME.

i needed this sign as a trophy, so i replaced the original sign with this:

it got the point across, right? i left similar outcries in each bathroom. i don't think they lasted long- i know the sticky note i put up in our hall was removed within the hour and thrown in the toilet. i was tempted to write another: "to the person who stole my sticky note- in a perfect world, there are enough trashcans for everyone, and you don't have to throw things away in the toilet." but i left it as it was.

finally, on my last day in the dorms, the following was posted. i was leaving that afternoon, so i didn't mess around with these signs. plus, i was starting to feel a little remorseful. i decided to call it quits, and that was the end of our shenanigans.

at some point of our epic, a hallmate informed me that the trashcans are removed before finals week so students won't dump old assignments and binders willy nilly. i felt a little ridiculous, but i stick to my guns!* also, at that point, anything was more appealing than actual studying.

the following are further images depicting the trashcan debacle of '11. enjoy... because at this point you've probably read everything else, and the rest is pictures.

another passive aggressive sign for an upstairs bathroom.

when the notes got hostile, this seemed a little conspicuous. so i moved the trophy cabinet...

also, if you have some spare time, i like to take lots of videos as well as pictures.

anyway, i'm going to watch marina draw sara on paint, as "that is the only logical thing to do" at 1:30 in the morning. nighty night, don't let the bed bugs smerf!

-katie

*except for, you know, when my guns involve hard stuff. like exercise. or finishing a knitted scarf.