COLUMN: When 'yippie' meant something else

By Tobin Barnes
Happiness is life after roommates. That was my topic last time.

I referred to some of my past bad roommates, including the stinky guy who slept on grey sheets and never took a shower. I could have also added that he was a Yippie, a proponent of every radical political movement on campus.

But he and his ilk were a distinct minority at my college. Much more interest was dedicated to fraternities and sororities and who was pinned to whom. Actually had a column in the college newspaper about the latest burgeoning love affairs amongst the Greek set. Yeah, old-school crapola.

Nevertheless, a goodly number of students knew absolutely nothing about the Greek alphabet and preferred it that way. And that pretty much divided things up: You had your Greeks and your Freaks and your In-Betweens. That’s how you got classified.

My roommate felt comfy in the Freak category. He was Mr. Counterculture in thought, word, and deed. Freaks did their best to avoid appearing anything like the all-American boy, or girl, for that matter.

He liked to go over to the student union and “rap” about radical political agendas, how to get out from under The Man, and how to overthrow The Establishment.

Back then, rapping didn’t have anything to do with music, or, more accurately, what they now like to think is music. Rapping then was getting into sincere discussions, looking for answers, and maybe solving a world problem in a half hour.

A lot of student union rappers thought we needed another revolution. At least it’d get rid of Nixon.

My roommate posted the sign “Viva la Raza!” on our dorm room door, like he was Pancho Villa or something. I had no idea who or what la Raza was at the time, which put me at a disadvantage since I lived inside that door. But I sure as heck wasn’t going to get into a rap session with my roommate about it.

And what puzzled me even more about the la Raza thing was that he was a blond, white-bread guy of obvious Scandinavian descent. Sign should have read “Uff da!”

Yeah, I could have talked about all that in my last column, but I thought that’d be overkill. Instead, I promised I’d excerpt some stuff from an article I ran into on rantfarm.net about the writer’s roommate. It was what got me going on roommates in the first place.

Starts out like this (my comments are in parentheses):

“Dear Everyone,

“I have lived with druggies, weird people, and just plain inconsiderate people. None of them compare to the roommate I have now. He is literally the most annoying person I have ever met in my life. Living with him is like water torture....”

(His name isn’t Dick Cheney, is it? Have you ever gone hunting with him?)

“He is so cheap that he only has one bowl. It is a Superman bowl. He is a grown adult. And what does he do with this bowl? When he’s done using it, he puts it right over the drain so that nothing else can drain out. Not NEXT to it, but right OVER it. Why, God, does he do this?”

(God: “Because I have given him free will.”)

“When he eats, he holds his spoon like a toddler, gripping it with his fist, and his thumb faced toward the round part. He also scrapes his teeth against the metal. Sometimes I want to grab the spoon and smack him with it.”

(I think it’s important that you do.)

“He just looks like a doofus. Yes, I used the word doofus. Because it’s perfect.

“He prefaces every question with: “Question …” or “Can I ask you a question?”
Just ask the stupid question.”

(Question. Why does this upset you so much?)

“He is a philosophy major. Therefore it is impossible to have a normal conversation with him, like, ‘Wow, there’s a hot girl!’

“‘Define hot, is that subjective or objective?’”

(I now feel better about my roommates knowing that he feels bad about his.)