Thus began two years of debauchery and greatness.
The Druid is an interesting character. Born in Texas, and raised in Wisconsin to two native Kansans, he suffers from some minor identity issues. As in, he can't decide where he is from. If you ask him though, he'll tell you he wasn't raised in Kansas, but he is a Kansan. And he is, in every sense of the word. He's kind of a nihilist now, though when I met him he was still a fairly Catholic frat boy. Shortly after we met- within a week- we were inseparable. People were beginning to ask questions. Questions like- "Why don't you date that boy you're always with?" and "Are you guys dating?" The Druid and I would never, ever, ever work as a couple.I shudder at the thought. (I love you, Druid.I know you're making an appalled face right now.) First off, he's a boy and I like girls. But more than that, he's just The Druid. Maybe if I can tell a few of our stories, you might understand why we are just the best of friends. I plan to write three or four, all of them a separate entry. Here is the first of the series, In Which We...
Exhibit A: In Which We Survived the Ice Storm
December.2007.Manhattan, Kansas. For a better part of my college experience, I lived in an amazing place. We usually just refer to it as Sixteenth Street. I lived there along with Georgia Peach, Bass Lady, Boydog, Boydog's sister (she needs a good codename.ideas?), the peach's brother "B", an anthropology student "Teawrapper", some rats, some turtles, a few snakes, and a couple of cats that roamed the neighborhood. By this time, the Druid had become a next to permanent fixture on our couch, and we considered him a roommate. Seriously. It was hard to get him off of the couch.It began to rain in the afternoon. I think this was the weekend before finals? Or maybe the Monday of Finals Week. At any rate, we knew it was going to get bad. The Druid was at his apartment for once, probably playing WOW or working on his Hist 586 paper for the Hoffinator. At Sixteenth Street, B, Teawrapper and I stood on the porch and watched the rain turn to icing rain. We knew we were in for a bout of trouble when the branches on the tree out front touched the ground. That night, I was on the phone with The Druid when the entire town lost power. "I think Wal-Mart just blew up! There's a lot of green and yellow in the sky right now over that way.Holy Shit. Do you think I should go looting?"-The Druid's description of the events that transpired that night.
The next day, we woke up to cold. Extreme cold. Did I mention that we had no heat? Finals were cancelled all over the board, but of course, history papers were still due on time. Because you had all semester to work on them, professors didn't worry about a little ice. Um, yeah...'bout that. I had a ten page paper due for the Bontronic that I hadn't even started. The Druid was finishing his 586 paper (the most important paper in your undergrad career at KSU), but still had somewhere from 5-10 pages left to write, edit, rewrite, and then edit again before it went to the Hoffinator.
Well, the first day we assumed that the power would be back on very soon. No one did anything scholastic, we all thought that we wouldn't have to worry about it. So what do you DO when you have no power, there are 6 inches of ice on the ground, and you really, really shouldn't drive anywhere? Easy. You have a damn party! Someone showed up with Apple Cider, Hot Damn and Butterscotch Schnapps, and suddenly it wasn't so cold anymore. There was ice soccer on the street in front of our house, and we capped off the lovely evening by singing christmas carols by candlelight in the sweet tent that the Bass Lady and I had constructed to try and capture as much heat as possible. Thinking back on it, we built that tent with the only open side facing our brick fireplace. Probably didn't retain much heat, actually. We attempted to cook for ourselves with a camping stove inside, and are hella lucky we didn't blow up the house or give ourselves carbon monoxide poisoning. The house had actually thrown a small fete the weekend before to celebrate..something. I think maybe the Bass Lady was leaving for her student teaching gig. Consequently, we had a half-full keg of Natty Light in our laundry room. It ended up proving invaluable during the ordeal.
After we went another day without power, we decided that it was probably inevitable that we would have to spend the rest of our finals week in Hale, because the University had power, so we thought we should finish those papers we started. Together, the Druid and I slid the 6 blocks to the library and entrenched ourselves at a table on the fourth floor, our favorite. Oh..it was warrrrrrrrm. Lovely. We had a system. No talking unless it's an emergency, like a funny kid running through the stacks or someone falling asleep at their laptop. Every 30 minutes, we would get up and stretch our legs, run down to the basement for fifty cent vending machine coffee, or fetch books from the stacks. No talking to anyone via instant messaging, cell phones could only be used if it was my girlfriend, one of our mothers, or in later editions of late night at hale, the Attorney. Every hour on the hour, we took a picture documenting our progress and how much longer we would be in the library.. We actually have more than one of these late night at the library albums. We tended to make procrastination into a habit after this.
I finally finished my paper at around 3am. I know this because of the photo evidence. The Druid wasn't so lucky..I think he was there until 5ish. We ended up going an entire week without power. The walk home from Hale that night was without a doubt the scariest thing I have ever done. It was just a few blocks, but it was 3 in the morning. And there was no power in our part of town. At all. No streetlamps + icy sidewalks = freaky,long, frightening walk home. Upon arriving home, I found the Bass Lady, The Peach, Boydog, and Boydog's sister all cuddled up in the same bed under every blanket we owned. You better believe I got in on that. Warmth!
The Druid did finish his paper, and if memory serves me correctly, he did very well. The Hoffinator did not spit him out after chewing, as he is wont to do. I don't think I got an A on that paper. I don't think the Bontronic ever gave me an A, really. She usually could tell when I wrote the paper the night before, and I suffered for it..and yet I never changed my stripes. Together, the Druid and I would make the ritual trek to Hale Library and work on our papers, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health. I imagine that when he visits this summer, we'll go visit just because we can. I bet we'll be all over that history department, actually. I should warn someone.
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