Column: There's something in my sink

By Polina Yamshchikov, Columnist
Nov. 9, 2007

The other day I was lying in bed, wrapped in a quiet cocoon of blankets, enjoying the sunlight playing games across my face, when suddenly there came a sharp rapping at my door. It was my roommate, coming to tell me that something was growing out of our bathroom sink.

I know what you're thinking: "Jesus, girl, what the hell is going on in your home?" Let me explain.

I live in a building that's affectionately called the J-Slums by its residents and admirers. It's an old building to be certain, but no one can tell just how old. The best idea we can get is in the form of a yellowed photo print hanging in The Maneater office that shows the campus before even the Geology Building was erected. There, quietly, unassumingly, stands the Slums in all of its glory. Yes, my apartment is older than basically everything on campus, save for Jesse Hall.

Back to the growth in the sink. Meg, my roommate, unscrewed the drain cover and out popped a vibrantly green, rather healthy looking beanstalk. She pulled on it, disgusted, and the thing came to about six inches, complete with a full root system. It looked better fed than I do. Sadly enough, this is the least repulsive surprise we've found in our home.

My point, and I'm sure everyone can relate, is that my apartment is a shitshow. There's routinely Jell-O shots spilled all over the back stairs, and sometimes we find vomit in fun places (like in our barbecue grill outside). They forgot to add insulation to my bedroom when it was built, so my stockpile of SmartWater (best investment ever, by the way) froze while I was asleep last night. I froze while I was asleep last night.

But the thing is, I don't think I'd live anywhere else on campus if I had the choice.

I have friends who live in places like Campus Lodge and The Reserve. Their apartments are nice — of course they are, they came with a plasma TV — but they're so sterile and manufactured in comparison to my humble little Slum.

Sure, the floors are peeling up and my roommate saw a rat the size of a Chihuahua in the laundry room a few weeks ago, but it has character and depth, past the fact that students shuffle in and out of it like musical apartments. There's history here.

Besides, at what other time in my life is this going to be so funny?

Every time something breaks in our kitchen or we find a bat in the living room, it turns into raucous laughter and a great story to tell. Later on, when we all move to cities and live those big shiny lives we've always wanted, it's going to be great to look back on that time that my roommate wrote "CUNT" on a nasty note that our neighbors left us and then stuck it to a giant, ugly red and purple Jell-O spill right next to our door.

It's probably going to make good writing material someday, too, once I get a little distance.

My point is this: We're in college, and as cliché as it might be, the broke-student stereotype isn't going away despite how hard we try to dispel it.

We are broke, and for the most part, our apartments are shit. The sooner we can all accept this as fact rather than another in a long string of disappointments, the sooner we can laugh at ourselves and enjoy life for what it is. We can't change things, so we might as well live it up.

Just don't go into the basement after dark: I hear there are hobos down there.

pvyrmf@mizzou.edu

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Column: There's something in my sink

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