Good Idea at the Time
an excerpt

First there was Abby. Sweet Abby. Abby was the most impressionable of the eight of us and it had been that way since we were freshmen. She was the one most likely to not know what something dirty actually meant and she was the most likely one to turn a deep shade of red at the mention of the nearby porn store (which the guys in our group frequently tried to get us to make field trips to). Abby was definitely the one who had become the most scarred over the course of the years, and she had far more corruption to go through before she could fully match the dirty minds of the rest of the group.
Then there was Heather, Abby’s roommate since we were freshmen. Heather wasn’t much better than Abby, but she usually knew what was going on, she got the dirty jokes, and she would only turn a light shade of pink when the guys would bring up the porn store. Heather was more of a klutz than anything. She’d fallen down the stairs five times in our first month at college when we were freshmen. The miraculous thing about her, however, was that she always managed to escape injury. She’d broken glasses, ran into doors, tripped on staircases of every variety, and yet the most she had ever gotten was a very disgusting bruise that took up most of her elbow (that was when we were sophomores and she had backed into a tree).
Kevin was one of the guys in our group. He was usually the first to mention the porn store, the first to offer his car should we choose to go, and the first to get hit over the head by a pillow because he was so obnoxious about the whole thing. He definitely had the dirtiest mind out of all of us, and that never changed, no matter how old we got.
John was Kevin’s roommate, which we all wondered how that match happened. Those two guys couldn’t be more different. John actually gave a crap. Kevin was more likely to go to the bar, John was more likely to crack open a book and study for class. But, somehow, someway, they stuck together for two years (at that point…sophomore and junior years). John usually escaped to the library when Kevin was being annoying, or just locked him out of his bedroom. Either way worked fine for him.
Andrea and I had been friends since kindergarten. That’s a long time. I don’t really know how we ended up at the same college, or how we stayed in the same group of friends. Usually people suggest getting away from your high school friends when you’re at college. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t escape her (not that I was trying hard). Andrea had a sweet disposition, but she tended to be loud. Really loud. To the point of bleeding ears, sometimes. She wasn’t the neatest person in the world, but she wasn’t the dirtiest. If she had her piles, she was a happy camper. And sometimes she’d make it her goal to annoy certain people, if they annoyed her first. She was a queen of road rage, and wouldn’t hesitate to throw someone the finger if they were pissing her off. But that was Andrea and I loved her either way.
Shannon was Andrea’s roommate. Shannon and Andrea had similar personalities (both mildly aggressive, sarcastic, not willing to take shit from anyone), but Shannon was a little quieter about it. I think that’s how they were able to live together—they evened each other out. Andrea kept Shannon hyper, Shannon toned Andrea down. It was a good match and had worked since our freshman year.
David and I had been friends since freshman year of college and everyone always insisted that we date. We knew, however, that if we dated we would kill each other. Murder suicide. And a bloody one at that. While we could be best friends, while we could count on each other for anything and everything and trust each other with our deepest and most personal secrets, we could never date. David and I were too much alike. We clashed heads too often because of this. Like me, David was a stubborn ass, didn’t like taking shit from anyone, and talked too much. If you got him started, he could easily talk non-stop for a good half hour.
Mark was David’s roommate. Mark was much quieter than David and less likely to share personal secrets with anyone. He mostly kept to himself, unless we dragged him out to be social (which did quite often, for his own good). Freshman year he barely hung out with any of us unless we forced him. By junior year, he was comfortable around us, if not around anyone else, and he was more likely to come out of his little hidey hole on his own. Like most roommate situations, Mark and David’s match worked wonderfully—Mark calmed David down a little, David helped Mark get out more.
Julia was my roommate and had been since our freshman year. It was a lucky match, and it was fate. We had become best friends within the first couple weeks of class. Julia was obnoxious and never listened to what anyone said. She didn’t like taking advice, was far too preoccupied with what she would wear for special occasions, and was possibly the most indecisive person I ever met. She was superstitious and possibly slightly OCD. But she was my best friend, and as many times as I wanted to kill her for driving me insane, I couldn’t help but love her.
And that leaves me, the eighth member to our little psychotic cluster—Amber. At the time I was 20, the youngest in the group, and the last who would turn 21 (David’s birthday was five days before mine and he would never fail to remind me of this fact). I was an English major and wouldn’t ever pause to correct someone if they used poor grammar (or, rather, grammar that I didn’t agree with…pet peeves and all that). I had a “well, whatever” attitude toward many things, wasn’t nearly as sheltered as many of my friends tended to think I was, and I was terribly sarcastic. And stubborn. And I didn’t like taking crap from anyone, much like several other people in my group.
But, yes, like I said. It was junior year. We had two years left to perfect our college experience, have the times of our lives, and not die from stress. We planned early in the year that we would make the most of it, live life to its fullest, take risks and do things just because we could. Because, let’s face it, in another two years we’d be out in the real world, working some lame desk job in a cubicle somewhere. We needed to make the most of life while we still could, while it was still acceptable. And that was exactly what the eight of us planned to do.
Abby, Heather, Kevin, David, John, Mark, Andrea, Shannon, Julia, and Amber—the most amazing group of friends ever to grace a college campus. We vowed to make the most of those years. And, well, let’s face it—it seemed like a good idea at the time.