College is a time for learning, making new friends and above all else, living in close proximity to someone that you might despise. Roommates and floor mates have been known to be the nail on the chalkboard to many people during their higher education experience. The Weekender asked around for stories that were worthy enough (and clean enough to print in the paper) to be put into an edition entitled, “Roommate Madness.” The following stories are ones that have actually happened to students at NIU, but their names have been changed to protect them from any harm that may occur after this is printed.

During my freshman year of college, one of the floors in the residence halls formed a clique of three girls. Cliques are common place in a new environment, especially in a residence hall, due to the overwhelming need to survive the semester. The newly formed clique included my new roommate. In an effort to get people together on the floor, they decided it would be a funny idea to pull various pranks on the floor. Many of them were small pranks like silly string and putting condoms on the handles of resident’s doors. The pranks went on all day and throughout the floor. At one point in the day, I went to use the bathroom down the hall. Not knowing what was about to transpire, I sat down on the toilet seat. It was at that point I realized the clique had decided to put Icy Hot all over the toilet seats. I immediately ran out of the bathroom screaming, “My ass is on fire, my ass is on fire, I don’t know what to do.” I ran down the hall to confront the clique, butthey denied it was them. Hall directors got involved and I ended switching rooms and getting a new roommate.

– S.C. Sophomore, Business Marketing major

One night my roommates and a couple of girls from my floor were looking around on the Internet. We wanted to buy a gift for our community adviser, but really didn’t know what to get him. We came across a porn site that sold sex toys. We knew that our CA liked cows a lot and we found a toy on the site that we thought he would find funny because it would be a gag gift for him. The five of us in the room chipped in for this toy and when we received it, we made sure to bring it down to him. At one of the weekly hall council meetings, the “cow” was brought downstairs where many people were checking it out. The hall director of the tower was at the meeting that night and wanted to see the cow. She ended up playing with the toy for quite awhile because she did not know it was used for something else. All the college students in the room knew right away what it was for, all except her. No one happened to clue her in about it. I think she will find out now.

– R.M. Junior, Communications major

There was a kid on my floor who was short, big nosed and blonde haired with a squeaky voice. He liked to consume an alcoholic beverage like every other young and eager college student. One night while drinking quite a bit of his favorite drink he went down to our room. My roommate had been playing an intense game of NCAA 2002 early while also consuming some beverages. Naturally, like any human, after having any liquid, a man needs to relieve himself in the bathroom. My roommate was the exception to that rule. He took one of his empty bottles and decided to urinate into it and then proceeded to place it on top of the micro fridge. It remained there through the evening and when our squeaky voiced friend came down he asked if anyone wanted anything to drink. We quickly refuted, but my roommate suggested he try this “new drink on top of the micro fridge. He picked up the bottle and took a sip of this drink. He spit the new drink on the floor and ran to the bathroom. Later on he came back and asked what the drink was. We never told him.

– B.A. Senior, Communications major

My old roommate didn’t make the best impression on me when we lived together. The first week of school, my floor found him drunk and passed out in our lounge. He also at one point in the semester threatened our next door neighbors with a baseball bat while making racist remarks because their music was up too loud at 5 p.m. Every time the phone rang in our room and the caller was looking for me, he would hang up the phone because he was jealous that people called me. He stole my shoes one day while I was gone, but we didn’t even wear the same size. The sad thing about it was they were not even my shoes; I had just recently borrowed them. The final straw between him and I came when he stole my DVD player one weekend. His reasoning behind this was flawless. He took the DVD player home because he could fix it at his house. There was nothing wrong with the player at all, but I’m glad he wanted to fix it.

– A.S. Junior, Public Health major