My first move was to a newer more sophisticated dorm for summer school. I was never one of the privileged kids with a car that my parents (or anyone else) purchased for me. Nor was I one of those few kids who worked enough to save for one. Sports was my true commitment after school so any jobs that I did have was make chump change. So, though my move was about six blocks (three city blocks) it was tough because I literally used a hand-truck to lug my stuff down the faulty, rank elevators onto the cracky, stinky streets of N. Philly, to the other side of this well-lit campus. It was tedious, tiresome and draining. I now romantically imagine kicking beggars off the handtruck, mean mugging thugs who plotted to rob me and headnodding the ladies who admired my sheer manly strength as I used my sculpted guns to U(hand)haul my stuff. Of course none of that actually happened.1300! considering that this was a dorm whose address was 1300 Cecil B. Moore the name is fittingly lame. Condescension aside the dorm was fly. Apartment style with kitchens, cheap living room furniture and central air...compared to J&H this was HEAVEN!
Not much exciting happened here...I got second in a hotwing eating contest. The wings weren't that hot to me, I lost to a dude that was 6'5", 245...i'm 5'8" 160 (155 at the time). My team also lost a game of dorm feud (like family feud). The prize was $50 gift cards to PATHMARK! FREE GROCERIES! Here's how it happened: it was the last round and our fifth player (who was a little slow I will add) went up to the buzzer -- which was a soda bottled that needed to be knocked over (to count as a buzz). Now, by slow I mean intellectually slow not reaction time slow because when the question was posed: "Name a famous mickey..." she knocked the mess outta that bottle, but she blurted out still in an adrenaline rushed, idiotic stupor: Minnie Mouse!
WOW.
Name a famous mickey: Minnie! Needless to say we lost and I never ever spoke to that slow slow again. Ever. Seriously. (If i saw her today I'd act like she didn't exist and tell anyone who was with me -- probably my son or Tica -- this exact story).
The last interesting thing that happened at 1300 was my epic battle with a rodent my first night there. Ok, the battle wasn't epic but it was pretty amazing. I was on the phone late-night with my self proclaimed sister from DC. She's a Jackson too, just not actually related...and in the midst of talking about random nothings I saw a critter run from my room to the refrigerator! GASP! all the karate chopping beggars and mean mugging thugs I forgot to make handtruck roadkill out of leeching mice?! oh no!
I immediately paused my familial conversation and went to the refrigerator and bellowed a manly grunt/yell while lifting the fridge. Yes, my adrenaline was pumping. The critter (usain)bolted from under the fridge and was running along the perimeter of our living room. Enraged I (usain)Bolted across the room and began kicking the couches, as if I were to have impeccable timing and smush that sucka onto the wall.
I returned to my conversation which now turned into a three way conference call with my actual twin and my friend while I eyed the couches intently, waiting for that rodent to come peeking at what i was doing...mice are so nosey! He didn't (no, there are no female mice in my head, only males, it makes the violence against them appropriate). After 40 minutes of wait time i decided to be the aggressor so I went to move the first couch that I Kicked and much to my pleasant surprise the impeccable timing i thought I had, I DID. There was the putrid remains of the rodent who thought he could (usain)bolt faster than me! I won! He lost. He's dead. I'm alive. But the was merely a foreshadow of things to come in my next place...on 29th and Diamond Street...
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