Airing out freshman memories before they go stale: Part 1

Penn’s weekly humor magazine, 34^th Street, recently published an article documenting the ten people you meet freshman year and, oh boy, did it bring back the mems. (What’s that? “mems” isn’t working? Oh, okay.) However, one character from my freshman year experience that did not make the list but definitely made my own "top 5 most emotional moments of freshman year" list (spoiler: the evoked emotion = fear) is a not-so-lady-like lady I'd like to classify as The Jealous High School Girlfriend. 

Jordan was a freshman football player in two of my first semester classes whom, I'll admit, I didn't find terribly hard to look at. However, I had my own long-distance thing going on--just your typical highschool relationship: expired by Thanksgiving, thrown out by Christmas--and I had already made the decision to save any infidelity for my 50s, when I'll go all Mrs. Robinson on some Benjamin Braddock of the future.

Jordan had his own long distance noise, a fact I learned when I suggested that we "study for the test together" and he responded with, "I have a girlfriend." His response struck me as a bit of a non-sequitur. (Let me clarify, I suggested this with my books held nerd-style against my chest, my finger no where near my mouth, and both eyes fully open--not even a squint going, let alone a wink.) 

At first I worried that eight years of all-girls school had impaired my proficiency in late-adolescent innuendos. But then I realized, nope. By saying, "I have a girlfriend," Jordan meant, "I have a batsh*t crazy girlfriend who probably verbally abuses me."

(Actual crazy not pictured)

Lesson learned...a little too late. 

One friday evening I texted Jordan about the homework for that weekend, and he texted back with a response and then some small talk. He suggested we go out to ice cream sometime (bogus for many reasons, one of which being the dearth of ice cream places on campus...unless he meant soft serve in the dining hall, which is tacky at first glance, but appeals to my frugal side.) 

Naturally, I asked him how he was okay with his proposed rendezvous, and yet my suggestion that we study together made him sweat. The next text he sent was something to the extent of "well, you've already turned me down for lunch twice, (sidenote: apparently saying goodbye after someone announces they're going to get lunch = rejected invitation) so I thought you might be more open to going out for ice cream." 

I wasn't exactly sure how to reply, so I sat on my thoughts and tried to shrink them down into 160 characters or less. However, before I could respond, I noticed that he was calling me. "That's funny," I thought. "Why would he be calling when we seem to have this texting thing down pat?" 

Turns out, he rang with somewhat urgent news. Evidently, he had accidentally sent that last message to his girlfriend, whose name also started with M (still, didn't he have a 'reply' option?) and so he was just "warning" me and was "sorry" if I "get some weird phone calls tomorrow," but not to worry because it was "just my girlfriend." Huh. 

Also, this means that when crazyGirlfriend called up Jordan, instead of being like, "woah crazy girl, calm down, it was just a friend...a guy friend...using my phone...to text another guy" Jordan was like, "oh, hey baby. Yeah, about that, here's her name and phone number. Okayloveyoubyyyye!!"

The first call came around four o'clock the next day (I guess that's the time when all the High School bars open) and the calls continued to come all through the night (like a Boyz II Men ballad, only terrifying.) Jordan's girlfriend and her band of cronies filled my voice mailbox with menacing messages that, if nothing else, deserve to be lauded for their creativity. 

A bouquet of some of my favorites, if you will: 

Set my face on fire, brain tumor, big vagina. That's a big pill to swallow, even on a Saturday.

Ah, young love. So passionate.

Although I tried, I couldn't save those messages. My friends and I talked about how hilaaarious they were, but listening to them still made me want to enter the witness protection program. Although those girls really could've used a thesaurus, I've got to hand it to them, their arguments were still persuasive enough to convince me to avoid Jordan for the rest of the year.

I hardly ever saw Jordan after freshman year. However, at graduation this past spring, I spotted him posing for a picture with his (I assume not crazy) Penn girlfriend. She looked friendly and warm as she smiled for the camera. I watched them, my mind blasting back to 3 years earlier, and marveled at how happy the two young adults seemed. 

As the picture-taking continued, Jordan moved his face closer to hers, which was tanned but free of burn wounds. Her mortarboard rested on her blonde head, which showed no signs of tumors or recent surgery, and her gown was average size, no longer or wider than those of her normal-vagina-sized peers. "Good for them," I thought, snapping back to the present. 

And if those two "f*cking get married someday," I can honestly say, good for them.