I was reading Megan's going "wait there was somewhere else that had a setup with 5 person apartments where one person got the single? How weird!" and then I remembered we went to the same school. Duh. I lived off campus my junior year, sharing a room with a friend and out guy friend got the other (much smaller) bedroom. But it was a basement apartment, and I never want to live with no sunlight again. Even if most of my time wad spent in the darkened theater anyway.

When my mother was in college, they had room inspections for cleanliness and ocassionally white glove inspections where the literally ran a gloved hand over surfaces to see if they had been dusted.

When my mother was in college, they had maids.

Oh, so THAT'S why my salary is so far below market.

I wish storylines in William Gibson novels would stop coming true. It's creepy.

I had one roommate for a little over three years. In that time I got to watch her blossom from a shy, slightly awkward teenager into Flaming Bigot Woman. I moved. I still don't know why she metamorphosed, but I wish I could have stopped it.

My mom taught in Central American for 2-3 years, and then came back to the states and started grad school. This was 1958, and her dorm matron gave her grief about going on her bio class field trips because they'd keep her out past curfew. Mom was in an admin office, complaining about school policy interfering with her education, when Dad met her. He said it was love at first sight.

My semester abroad, we were all extremely freaked that a maid came in once a week to vacuum, clean the bathroom, take out the trash, strip the beds and leave clean sheets.

Very weird.

What a great story, Calli!

I'm pretty sure my mom lived off campus (at home or with roommates (and with my Dad after they got married, so her final semester ) her whole campus career.

Eta: our dorms had weekly housekeeping service - vacuuming, cleaning the bathrooms. That did not weird me out the way having someone clean my house would - maybe because it was never really my space?

My mom's nursing school dorm in the late '50s had very strict curfews and visiting policies (it was a Catholic school, so men were not allowed past the lobby at all). She had a pretty good roommate situation. Her roomie became my aunt when she married Mom's big brother, and Denise and Ray are having their 50th anniversary this year.

After my freshman roommate got all creepy on me, I moved out into the old maid's rooms on my hallway. There were no maids in my day. The main rooms were 3-room suites - two little side rooms and a center study. I think originally they were for one person and her personal maid; in my day 4 people shared them. Shared hallway bathrooms. (My freshman roommate developed a tendency to sit on her bed and watch me while I did my homework and stuff not 6 feet away. It freaked me the hell out. She was Swiss and not great with social stuff; she did not come back after freshman year.)

Scale model of Bag End built by mother of twins in her spare time. Way to make the rest of us feel inadequate! Also, GIMME. NAO PLS.

My freshman roommate was a squeaky clean, Job's Daughter, fun-loving extrovert. Me? Cynical and emo as all getout. Ultimately, she pledged a sorority and asked me to join her. I got about 4 questions into the application and demurred. Not my cuppa. I ended up going from patient bemusement over their antics to wrenching my dorm room door off of the hinges in rage. eta: Sadly, the last time I saw her, she was married to a local drug dealer (who lived across the hall from us that year) and was so strung out, (with creepy, bloody eyes I hope never to see again) she didn't even recognize me. Sad.

Sophomore year, I had the second best room on campus with a troubled young woman who ultimately moved to the 'quiet' dorm and was replaced by a...creature. Soph2nd projected wide eyed innocence at the same time she was screwing the captain of the basketball team on the bottom bunk (Yes, I was on the top) and logicked it away by saying she wasn't having sex, the light was on!

Again, my open-minded patience led to emotional bloodshed. blahblah, long story...I ended up having the awesome room to myself for much of the year. I served as a campus 'hostess' trying to keep visiting prospective students out of the clutches of frat boys. I convinced the housing director that the girls could not get the 'real college experience' if they were camped out on the floor. Shazam! Single-ish room!!

I got married that year as well, so off-campus housing from that point on.