tight.

having lived with roommates for two and a half years, i have made a few observations about the level of closeness that develops throughout roommate-ship. there are many signs that roommates are getting closer. going to bed earlier, or perhaps falling asleep faster, because you know more about each other and do not stay up all night telling stories and getting to know the crazy sides of people that only come out at night, is a definite signal, but going to bed later due to crazy adventures and the like is also a category. matching is a sure sign of roommate love, particularly unplanned matching, but really any kind. increase in a number of pictures together, especially awful pictures also points to proximity. as i said before there are countless examples but i would like to focus on one: food sharing. specifically milk sharing.

milk is an interesting thing. it comes in a bulky gallon and takes up lots of room in the fridge, especially when four people have four gallons. its tricky because everyone drinks different percents and different amounts of milk. some people drink it at every meal, some use it only for cereal. so milk sharing is something that often never happens. therefore, when milk is shared, it is a true sign of real roommate friendship. throughout my years of roommates i have had different milk sharing experiences that i would like to share.

freshman year:

my first year of college was spent in david john hall in a room the size of a closet with one dear roommate: mindy kimille westover. we were matching before we even met each other and after our first picture together i think we have taken at least 5,000 more. our roommate closeness increased exponentially. it practically shot straight up after that first awkward saturday when she moved in. helamen halls meant no kitchen, only a mini fridge that actually was more of a step to get onto our beds than a place to store food. however, helamen halls also meant staying up late and not making it to the cannon center for breakfast before early classes (unless it was a quick muffin grab) so mind and i decided to invest in some cereal and milk for the room. naturally due to lack of space and small fridge size, we shared everything from grocery trip #1. bam. we were as close as it gets. skim milk drinkers and best friends. luckily we had the cannon for when mind was craving some serious chocolate milk. i dont think i know of two closer roomies, and this milk sharing from the beginning only proves just how close we are.

sophomore year:

mind and i branched out and moved into the good old SB 302 with emily alice cloward. after getting over the slight epidemic when emily was drinking whole milk thinking it was skim milk, nothing really changed. mind and i shared from the start, taking turns buying. and emily bought her own milk. the three of us never really got too close. although emily DEFINITELY drank our milk and we occasionally snuck sips from hers it was always done clandestinely - see, we didn't share milk, we snuck sips in secret, we weren't best friends forever. although there were the few occasions when emily blatantly took our gallon of milk out of the fridge and poured herself a glass, perhaps as a cry for closeness, by the end of the semester we were ready to move one and take our milk with us.

junior year:

mind and i have branched yet again and now have spilt leaving us both with new roommates. (don't worry, we still share milk and eat together frequently) however, we had to begin anew with the milk issue. when i first moved in there were three gallons in our fridge. mallory and katie's 1% and my skim. ash is not a big milk drinker. after a couple of my skim gallons went bad, i discovered that mindy is definitely the milk drinker in our relationship and switched to the half gallon. two gallons and one half is a little less bulky but still quite annoying, especially when it is your gallon that gets pushed all the way to the back. sometimes in the realm of the milk sharing world you have to make some sacrifices. one day, and i am not quite sure how it happened, mal and i just started to share milk. yipee! now it wasn't that we weren't close before, we just took a serious step as roommates and became closer. so the two and a half gallons had dwindled down to two. now let me tell you, the girls of allred 11 are close. really close. we have matching outfits. we take hundreds of pictures. we stay up all night talking. one of our most frequently said phrases is "i miss you already" when someone leaves for class. we are close.

and to top it all off, we were in serious need of milk at about 11:00 monday night, so katie and i decided to bike to the store in the chilly night air. guess what. we bought one gallon, just one gallon for all four of us. let me tell you, the is ultimate closeness.