Chapter 2 (cont.)

 

THE STUFF WE BROUGHT

 

The "Making the Move" chapter of The Practical Blue Hen was my go-to on what to bring to college. I mean, you could always trek to the 5 & 10 on Main Street to pick-up odds and ends as necessary, but man, did I cover all bases. Just some of the things I brought to UD my freshman year, besides the absolute obvious...

 

A shitload of underwear. I said to myself, "I don't want to do laundry more than once a month." So, I brought like 40 pairs of underwear. I’m serious. I stashed most of it under the long drawers they gave us, under the bunk bed. Again, if you currently live in my old dorm room, please see if I left any undies in there. Thanks. I was a 32 waist back then.

 

A shitload of quarters. Even though this contradicts the philosophy above, I brought $40 worth of quarters. Really though, that's just four $10 rolls, so it wasn't like I had this big jar. Remember, this was years before the machines accepted FLEX.

 

Closet Savers. Definitely a relic of the early '90s infomercial era. Well, they worked, actually. Kind of. I prefer hanging my t-shirts (which I had a lot of) rather than folding them, so this was the way to squeeze them all into that small Dickinson closet...but I think I ditched the closet savers by the time I got to Sypherd the next year.

 

Double-Sided Tape. Or maybe it was sticky tack? Whatever it was, it barely held posters to those damn dorm room walls. You know what I mean.

 

Hot Air Popcorn Popper. Are these things even around anymore? Well, I think I brought this, cuz we had been sternly warned not to have microwaves in our rooms. Weren't allowed at the time. I barely used it, but the hot air popper actually came into play during an ill-conceived prank…that I’m not legally allowed to talk about.

 

Extension Cords. Also were a no-no, but come on, please. Power strips were allowed, but not extension cords. Then the question became, “Well, can I chain a bunch of power strips together?” The answer was, “No,” of course. But I never intended to chain power strips together. Why? Because I had extension cords. See how it all worked out?

 

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Prepared for Pencader

 

“Well my freshman year was 2000 and everyone was allowed a microwave, but they didn't want you to have a George Forman Grill in there, and I had one. That thing was the shit. I lived in Pencader, so luckily I didn't need a fan (but when I lived in Gilbert, I made sure I had one), but one thing that is an essential that I went out and bought like the second day on campus, was one of those dry erase boards for your front door. Those things were AWESOME. The drunken messages and even the usefulness like if someone stopped by, at least you knew to call them or some shit. Also, any kind of table. Pencader rooms were big enough so you could put a six-foot table between the beds, which converted nicely into a Beer Pong table.”

 

- Paul P, UD '04

 

She’s Frigid

 

“Well, I had two, yes two fridges in our dorm room...one was the largest you could have and the other was the cube variety. We found if the cube was turned all the way up, it worked great as a freezer! Unfortunately they caught onto our illegal actions and we got cited for it...the RAs didn't wanna really deal with it, so they were like, ‘Turn it off and never use it again and we won't go any further with this...’ ‘Okay,’ we said...and we hooked it to an extension cord and moved it into a closet for good measure.”

 

- Anonymous, UD '05

 

Cutting to the Chase

 

“I brought a beer bong.”

 

- Keith W, UD '98

 

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FRESHMEN HERE, FRESHMEN THERE,

FRESHMEN EVERYWHERE

 

New Student Convocation. I only remember three things about 1991’s convocation, and I’m not even sure they’re accurate; 1) Was on the North Mall (nope, not “The Green,” more about that later), and…I take it back, that’s all I remember. Well, in the years since, it’s moved over to The Bob. The big deal about convocation, is that this is the only time you’ll see your entire class together, before graduation. You can also look around, and do the over / under on who won’t actually graduate.

 

Activities and stuff. Over the past ten years or so, UD has really amped up their efforts to organize all kinds of events and stuff for freshmen, during their first week of school. Hey, totally admirable, and also one of the motives I should think is to distract the new kids from immediately going out, and getting wasted. Which is what the next chapter is about.

 

The mandatory floor meeting. Yep, usually your first night, you and your floormates had to meet with your RA, and go over…well, you know, stuff. Maybe even a bunch of rules that you’ve already broken. My RA was a good guy…I think maybe we all participated in a painless bonding game, nothing too retarded. I don't think.

 

I believe it was a floor meeting later that school year (so, either Fall '91 or Spring '92), where the topic came up of off-campus parties being busted. I recall our RA saying that “they” are starting to crack down on parties, but he acknowledged that Delaware was still very much a party school. Which brings me to…

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Rumor: Delaware was once ranked by Playboy magazine as “Number One Party School.”

 

Dude, this is: False. Sorry guys, as of this writing, this is horseshit. According to Wikipedia, Playboy has published a list of party schools in 1987, 2002, 2006, and every year since 2009…but UD never made the cut. (If though I’m off on that, give me a shout.)

 

However, the Playboy connection to UD does have some validity; our dearly departed Stone Balloon was named one of the top college bars in America…in 1975. But that’s probably what contributed to the genesis of the rumor.

 

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