My freshman year of college, I went to the University of
Houston. I didn’t go there because I
really wanted to go there, but more because I had gotten my application in late
for Texas A&M University, and my only option was to go somewhere for a year
and transfer. This actually is a slight
lie, as I could have gone to Texas A&M that year if I had joined the corp
of cadets. However, after hearing about the
things they had to do, I decided that a year at another university was
preferable.
That entire year at U of H, I brought my lunch every single
day. My girlfriend and I had different
lunch schedules, so I generally ate alone.
It was somewhere around the second or third day on campus that I
wandered into the satellite student center.
And there, set up just inside the door, was a gigantic TV. In front of the TV, every seat, bench, and
open floor space was occupied by a girl.
All ages, all colors, all cultural backgrounds had come together for one
purpose…to watch the daily soap opera.
At first, I thought this was stupid, but it was cool inside,
and I really didn’t have anywhere else to go, so I stayed. Day after day, I found myself slowly getting
sucked into the stupid storyline. I
started to need this hour every day, so I could find out what was going to
happen next. I swear that I was the only
guy in there, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. I was eagerly accepted into the fold, and I was
quickly entrenched in conversation with girls around me about who was going to
date who next or which character was going to fall down an elevator shaft and
never wake up from the coma.
It was a strange way to spend lunches during my freshman
year, but surprisingly not as bad as I would have thought it would be.
