When I lived in Auburn (during college), I lived in a complex that attracted some really colorful people.
There was the guy who got dropped off one night because he was too drunk to drive. He went into his apartment and came back out nekkid. He walked down the stairs then scaled the handrail to get back up. Did I mention he was nekkid? (Unfortunately, I missed the show because I was sleeping. It was Sunday night, y'all, and I was probably sleeping off the weekend.)
Then there was the creepy guy who lived across from me who dyed and styled his hair to keep up with Scott Peterson’s ever-changing-at-the-time hair and blasted “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails on repeat every afternoon for a week until the resident manager told him to turn it down because, well, there's only so much "Closer" a girl can take.
And let’s not forget the guy who called me while I was in the check out line at Wal-Mart and asked me where he could BORROW a PACK of CIGARETTES. Riiiight. He also asked if he could buy one of my Rolling Rock’s from me when I only had a six pack. Say it with me y’all: Riiiiight. Oh, my soul!
Then there was the guy who lived a few doors down from me and did crystal meth. You knew he was tweaking when he would knock on your door and ask if you saw anyone hanging out at his apartment the night before.
“No. I don’t remember seeing anyone.”
“Ah! It’s my friends from Greenville playing some practical joke on me. See, what they did was they went to the bait shop and got a bunch of crickets and put ‘em in a pillowcase, then they sealed the windows and around the door, only leaving a little crack, then they let the crickets out and the crickets got stuck in between my walls”
I didn’t have the heart to tell the guy that I didn’t believe him because, first, I didn’t hear the crickets, and, second, there was no such thing as between walls at those apartments, which is why I would have known if there were people outside his apartment in the night. Everyone knew when someone was visiting because it sounded like they were outside your apartment.
There were many other colorful characters, some that deserve their own entire blog, but I have to get to the point of this story.
We were a friendly group of people, especially the guy who did crystal meth and his friends from Greenville. If it was the weekend, his friends from Greenville would be at the complex. I enjoyed sitting outside my apartment, drinking beer, and watching the drunk girls stumble in their stilettos as they crossed the parking lot to go to the club, so I got to be rather friendly with the Greenville crew as they passed by me on their back and forth trips to their big ol’ trucks, where they kept their pony kegs stashed.
Y’all, let us pause and marvel at the invention of the pony keg. Because of the pony keg, we are able to be a travelling keg party. What if our room mate sucks and we want to party? It’s pony keg time, baby! Rock and roll!
One Saturday night, after an awesome football game, I was sitting outside with a friend of mine and the Greenville crew was overflowing my neighbor’s apartment. One of the guys got tired of walking to his truck every five minutes to get another beer, so he eventually just stopped at the mid-way point – my apartment – and started talking to me.
“Yeah. My deddy gave me my own cow and it’s so cool when I come home. She sees my truck coming down the drive and she knows it’s me and she starts running to greet me. I get out of the car and run to her and she just nuzzles her nose in my chest. I got to raise her, you know.”
“So, you live on a farm?” My friend asked.
“Yeah. It’ll be mine some day, if I graduate. My daddy says I have to have my degree before he’ll let me have the farm.”
“What do you major in to be a farmer?”
“Well, I’m majoring in poetry science.”
“What does that have to do with farming?”
“Well, see I don’t really want the whole farm. I really like the chickens.”
He and my friend kept talking and talking about cows and chickens and farming and “poetry” science, and finally he ran out of beer and left.
“I didn't know you could major in poetry," my friend started, "but I still don't understand what that has to do with raising chickens."
Brings new meaning to the term "chick lit", doesn't it, y'all?
(For those of y’all who haven’t figured it out yet, the guy from Greenville was majoring in poultry science.)
