This is prompted by nothing but the fact that I was thinking about my freshman year college roommate this morning, for no reason at all, and started to suspect that other people might have amusing horror stories to share. Let me tell you mine.  I was 18, and in the roommate lottery at UCLA, as were most freshman. I was paired with a junior (who I later learned had had a falling out with all of her friends at the end of the prior year; this was eventually patched up, so don’t worry about her friend group. You’ll also shortly see why none of them may have wanted to live with her regardless). Let’s call her W. W was obsessed with safe sex (it was 1993; safe sex was really a buzzword) so her side of the room was literally covered in posters helpfully providing instructions on how to safely fist someone. Her on-off boyfriend (who was not a student) had a habit of brushing his teeth wearing a shirt, and shoes, but otherwise totally naked. My dorm floor was co-ed, but we didn’t have co-ed bathrooms, so I learned about this when my guy friends would scurry over to me and be like, “W’s boyfriend is WEIRD.” W used to get a sick tray from the cafeteria and lie in bed and eat fried chicken, then toss the gnawed-upon bones onto the carpet. When I’d get home, she’d look up at me and note, balefully, “I haven’t been feeling well.” But the real piece de resistance was the following, and I warn you, it is not for the squeamish.  So, it must have been my second or third day living with W. And she was, I THOUGHT, changing her clothes. Now, I did theater in high school; I went to an all-girls high school. I could certainly handle other people’s nudity. What I could not handle was a virtual stranger changing her tampon in front of me. “I hope you don’t mind,” she sang, as she tugged it out. “I am really comfortable with my body.” I did mind. I minded a lot.

Your turn.