by Megan Risley

Created on: March 03, 2009

This television was obviously not big enough for the both of us. Nor could I really have expected it to have been: my grandparents gave me a small TV for my high school graduation gift, and it was barely bigger than my desktop computer screen. But, I had wanted one to play DVD's on while I worked at the computer, being the great multi-tasker that I am.

This tiny barely-a-TV heap of gray plastic had magnificent powers. Not only was it was rapidly becoming the only source of tension between my randomly-assigned roommate and I, but it apparently had the power to destroy what may have been a good friendship.

I came home after unpacking the set not two hours before, and Jordan had already hooked it up to wires, tubes and playboxes. It looked like it was on life-support. But, as long as it didn't interferece with what I was planning on using the television for, I didn't complain. It didn't take long enough for me to notice the pattern: the television was always on, and always tuned to the same show; "Fresh Prince of Bel Air." I would come home and it would be on - even if she wasn't in the room. I would come back from taking a shower or eating at the dining hall, and it would be on - she wasn't ever hardly there. I would try to go to sleep, and it would be on - when she was there, I asked her to turn it off, and, the first couple of times she did, only for it to magically turn itself on again in the middle of the night.

The first and second times I talked to her about it, I thought we'd reached an agreement: basically, to make sure the TV was off if we were the last to leave the room, and keep it off at night. I would believe she meant what she said, but it took less and less time from the "agreement" to the triumphant return of the always-on-TV. Finally, on our final discussion about it, Jordan exploded, with the anger apparently pent-up from our previous talks. She angrily accused me of being racist: she had apparently missed the entire time that, although the show was about African American people, what bothered me was the state of the TV, not what was on it. She moved out in the middle of that next night, with the encouragement and support of our RA. I was the only white girl on the floor, which made any case I could have made null and void. Her moving out process began at 1am and, fourteen people, dozens of boxes, three collaborative dissasemblings of furniture and two phone fights with her out-of-state boyfriend later, she was gone....sort of.

She moved next door as that was the only available room. I got a double room all to myself - which sounded great until I saw the extra amount it was going to cost me. It was too late in the semester to petition for another roommate, so instead, I footed the bill and tried to avoid her in the bathroom, the hallway or the bus to campus. This was just as bad as having her as a roommate: I was guessing about her every move, wondering how many people she was telling stories about me to, and knowing that there wasn't much I could to stop their spread (I was the only white girl, after all). So, even though Jordan was my roommate for only about two months, I was dealing with her for the rest of that year. The new roommates I moved in with the next year were only marginally better (they were too drunk most of the time to accuse me of racism or...anything else, really), so I eventually learned my lesson and struck out on my own.

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