She Doesn't Even Go Here!

I graduated from college in May.  I was so ready to be done with that place and start the next chapter in my life.

But somehow come August I found myself on campus again... sleeping in my old roommate's bed in her on-campus apartment right across from our old apartment.  So much for moving on with my life.

The first day of classes I showed up in all of my old professors' offices and even went to a couple of their classes.  Everyone who saw me was confused... "Wait, didn't you graduate?"  "Abby, what are you doing here?"  "Shouldn't you be working or something?"

A devoted Mean Girls fan, one line kept ringing in my head--"She doesn't even go here!"

I stayed at Point Loma Nazarene University for the first week and a half of the fall semester.  After I had thoroughly worn out my welcome, it was finally time to move on.  On to Ann Arbor, where I would finally be getting a job and being an "adult."

So I moved into my new where I live primarily with University of Michigan graduate students.  "What are you going to school for?" a couple of them asked me when we met.  "Umm... I'm not actually in school right now..."

I got a job at a cafe on the UM campus, which also just happens to be two blocks from my house.  Since my work is on campus, I even have a UM ID card.

Every single person I meet automatically assumes I am a UM student.  I wear my Michigan shirt, hang out with students, go to the bars that students frequent... and basically do everything I can to make it seem like I am a student.

Every single time someone asks me what I'm majoring in or what year I am, the same thing pops into my head--"She doesn't even go here!"

Fortunately Tina Fey has yet to show up and kick me out.  Maybe someday I'll stop pretending I'm still in college, but until then I'm just trying to bake my cake full of rainbows and smiles, hoping we can all eat and be happy.

At a UM football game in the student section with my housemate Andrew, a real UM student

Had a Nice Trip... I'll Miss You Next Fall

My last college class ever. Earth Science is my only Friday class, and we are a little upset that Dr. Nichols is making us watch a movie.

"What a weird end to our college career," I whisper to Kimi and Ciera.

After class we walk down Caf Lane, a little disappointed at how anticlimactic this last day of college classes turned out to be. Dr. Nichols left class after he put in the VHS about Supernovas. He never came back.

I get into line in front of the Cafeteria with Katrin and my brother. The Caf gets worse and worse as the year dwindles down. Especially for a vegetarian, there are few options, so I grab a veggie burger from the Grill and some potatoes and green beans from the Classics line.

I get a glass of water and make my way to the silverware as I spot my roommate Abby at a nearby table. I step in front of the silverware table, but there is something on the ground. It's wet, and I begin to slip. It's like slow motion. Had I not been holding my water glass in my right hand and my plate and phone in my left, I would have easily been able to grab the table and catch my balance.

No such luck. My feet slip completely out from under me. In an attempt to not fall completely on my butt, I put my left hand out behind me. This means everything I was holding in my left hand goes flying onto the floor. My plate shatters.

I am sitting on the ground next to shards of plate interspersed with veggie burger, mashed potatoes, green beans, and my phone right in the middle of the pile.

I look up at the Dining Hall to see hundreds of faces turn toward me. Not two seconds later, the entire Cafeteria is clapping.

I've been dreading this moment my entire college career. Every time someone drops something in the Cafeteria, there is some sort of applause. I am pretty clumsy, so I was pretty surprised that up until this point I had never had one of these Caf accidents.

Well, this last day of school made up for my four years of never dropping a plate. The worst part is that I have to go back in and get more food. I see my brother in line at the Grill and ask if he heard my applause.

"That was you?" he asks. But he isn't surprised.

After lunch I am still sitting at a table with Abby. Syd and Katrin come over to laugh at me.

"Wait," Katrin asks me. "Did you fall right there?" She points to the silverware.

"Yeah."

"Was there something on the ground?"

"Yeah, there was water or something."

Katrin turns to Syd. "It was you!"

It turns out Syd had spilled just a little bit of lemonade as he grabbed his silverware.  When Katrin heard the crash, she wondered if it had been Syd's fault.  Of course, the one time I fall in my entire four years at this school, it is my brother's fault. 

For the rest of the day, people come up to me and ask if I'm okay. Or say, "Hey, I saw you in the Caf..." Or they just point and laugh.

Thank you, Nicholson Dining Commons, for an eventful four years.  I'm not sure I can say you will be missed, but you will at least be remembered.

Remembering Dale

“Have you voted yet, Abby?” Dale asked as I walked into class on Election Day.

I told him I hadn’t and gave him my excuses, but he shook his head in disappointment. He wasn’t as disappointed as he made himself out to be, though. Dale was never completely serious. Every Tuesday and Thursday night when the 20 or so students straggled into our 6:00pm Editing class, Dale made as many jokes as he could, all at our expense. However, none of us minded being teased by Dale; he was almost like a father figure.

At the end of the night, as we all packed up to leave a little before 7:15 (Dale usually let us out a little bit early. He once told me it was just for me: he wanted to make sure I didn’t miss any of Glee.), Dale addressed me as I walked out the side door.

“Abby, there’s still time for you to hit the polls!”

Being college students, we, of course, all heard “poles” rather than “polls.” What was Dale suggesting I spend my Tuesday night doing? A couple friends and I glanced at each other, trying to figure out what our professor was insinuating.

“Oh!” I realized after a minute. “The election polls!”

Another day, it just happened to be Brenda’s birthday, the phone rang in the middle of class.

“All the years I’ve taught in this classroom, the phone has never rung once,” Dale said as he walked to the back of the room.

“Hello?” we heard him say as he picked up the phone.

“No, Brenda cannot come out and play.”

“I’m sorry; we’re in class right now. Good bye.”

We were all very confused, Brenda probably the most. We asked Dale who had just called, and he wouldn’t tell us for a minute. After more prodding, though, he finally told us what had happened.

“There was no one there; it was a dial tone.”

I guess it’s fitting that a professor of Editing would always keep us on our toes. As we sat in class editing stories, he would sneak up behind us. At times I would be glued to the computer screen, feel a presence behind me, and turn to see Dale’s face right over my shoulder. He made Kimi scream a few times.

There are so many more stories I could tell about Dale. Every day we spent with him, he was an endless source of entertainment. Except for the last day of class.

I was rushing to class because I was about five minutes late. Dale wouldn’t care, but I still felt bad. I was late because my roommate had just done my hair so that I had a braid starting in the back of my head and looping around behind my ear. I was surprised when I reached the classroom and found the entire class standing outside. Dale was always there before us.

A student with an iPhone checked to see if he had sent an email; he hadn’t. We waited for probably another ten minutes. There is a rule that students are allowed to leave if a professor is a certain number of minutes late, but none of us would want to miss out on Dale’s class.

He finally walked into the building. He looked weak and pale.

“Nice hair,” he said to me as he let us into the classroom. He then said he had to go to the bathroom. We all stared at each other, wondering what was wrong. My seat was closest to the door, and five minutes later when he came back, I saw him attempt to open the door, but then stop for a minute. He looked dizzy and lightheaded. The door was heavy, but he had never had a problem with it before.

That day he taught us with a straight face. There was no chatter among the students. We couldn’t really pay attention, though. We were all on Google Chat, messaging each other:

“What is wrong with Dale?”

“=(”

“Look, he is wearing a hospital bracelet.”

Dale didn’t make any jokes as we all said goodbye.

We found out later that he had had a blood clot in his heart. The next week, which was our finals week, he had a quintuple bypass surgery.

The last email Dale sent us, on the morning of that last class period, said:

“Tis sad…but tonight is our last class before the final. So bring crying towels in addition to your TOYS story.”

Little did we know that we really would need crying towels, but not until the next month when we went to his memorial service.

I think of Dale Fetherling every time I use my AP Stylebook or see a Welsh Corgi (my favorite dog, and also the breed of Dale’s dog, Wink). As I pursue a career in editing, I know that no one has helped me as much as Dale, and I just hope I can be as fun and quirky of an editor as he was.

Let Me See Your Thong

My roommate is dating my brother.

"Wow, isn't that awkward?"  I get the same response almost every time I tell someone this.  But the truth is, it's fun to tell each other the weird things he says and talk about the possibility of being sisters-in-law someday.  Katrin and I never really feel weird about her boyfriend being my older brother.  However, I think Syd sometimes feels awkward about his sister and his girlfriend living together and constantly talking about him.

Syd just transferred to my school, so now he comes over to our apartment a lot.  One day Katrin and Syd were hanging out in our room in between classes.  Katrin was sitting at her desk typing something up and heard Syd pacing back and forth behind her.

"Ooh!" Katrin heard Syd making ogling noises and turned to see him holding up a pink thong he had found next to our dirty laundry hampers.

Her jaw dropped.  She just stared at him and couldn't even say anything.

"Please tell me these are yours," Syd said, a little bit worried by his girlfriend's silence.

Katrin burst into laughter.

Syd picked up the pair of jeans that were lying where he had found the thong.  After looking at them for a second, he dropped both the pants and the thong onto the floor.

"I have to go," he said and walked out the door.

The next day Syd, Katrin, and I were in line at the Cafeteria together.  I saw a dime on the ground and, since I always pick up change, bent over to get it.

"Abby," Syd said when my underwear peeked out of my jeans.  "You shouldn't bend over."

"Why?" I said, giggling a little bit.  "I thought you like to look at my underwear."

Me, Syd, and Katrin.  Apparently the only picture I have of the three of us is from 2009 and includes Elvis the Elk.

Butt Buddy

My friend Alicia and I love to exchange “awkward Caf stories.” As I have said before, things I say are often overheard and taken out of context. Also, our school Cafeteria is pretty small, and the close quarters cause inevitable bumping and brushing. A couple weeks ago I was dancing over to the vegetarian line and almost smashed into my World Civilizations professor. People are seldom paying attention to where they are going, so I have been stepped on and run into more times than I remember.

My favorite awkward Caf story, however, was completely my fault.

I walked into the Cafeteria and headed straight toward the vegetarian line. I’m not a real vegetarian; I’ve actually just been a pescetarian for a few months. But anyway, out of the questionable array of choices my school’s Cafeteria offers, the vegetarian options tend to be the safest.

As I reached the line, the girl in front of me went up to the counter to grab a plate. She walked back to the line and headed toward where the line ended, right behind me. I had seen her in line in front of me, and really I didn’t think that grabbing a plate merited losing a place in line.

“Go ahead,” I said as I motioned with both hands extended in front of me. But apparently I hadn’t been paying much attention, because there was a guy standing in line right in front of me. Each one of my hands, extended in front of me, perfectly cupped each one of his butt cheeks. As soon as I realized what had just happened, I immediately retracted my hands.

“Oh my gosh! Sorry!”

“Oh,” he said, seemingly unfazed by my groping. “It’s cool.”

The worst thing (or maybe the best thing) is that I go to a very small school of about 3,000. I see this guy, whom my friends and I refer to as my “butt buddy” or the “butt guy,” almost every day. I wonder if he sees me and says to his friends, “That’s the girl who grabbed my butt in the Caf.”

Butt buddy, if you ever read this, I’m sorry if I made you feel uncomfortable that day. I hope our interaction was as entertaining for you as it has been for me and my friends, and I hope that this story is one that you tell when someone brings up the topic of “awkward Caf stories.”