Me: Finally! A new start! This room is a lot smaller than I expected, though…

Roommate: I got here before you and filled it up with my stuff. Are you into post-industrial acid metal and the color black?

Me: I'm not sure?

Roommate: Shut up. My band practices in here ten hours day. Complain and I'll stab you. When I'm not doing that, I'll be nailing girls you're attracted to, since I'm also the star of the lacrosse team.

Group of Girls: Don't worry, though! We're every hot girl on campus, and we're turned on by your quiet, quirky individualism.

Me: Finally!

Girls: Kidding, loser, we're still all about washboard abs. Have fun hanging with your mom.

Mom: Hi honey! Hope you don't mind, I'm teaching everyone that nickname you hate. And look! Your ex-girlfriend Emmy goes here, too.

Me: Did- Did you list all my sexual hang-ups on your whiteboard?

Emmy: So that's where I left that. I've also been passing around a list of every movie you ever cried at.

RA: All right, guys, break it up.

Me: An amalgam of my issues with my father and the shark from Jaws? What are you doing here?

RA: Owning your life for the next nine months. In fact, college is just four more years of high school with harder classes.

Mom: Don't worry honey – study hard and you can move to the city, get a good job and finally be not a loser. What are you majoring in again?

Me: I'm torn between English and Art History.

The hall goes silent. Everybody stares condescendingly and silently judges me. My mom indicates through subtle body language that she still thinks I'm gay.

Mom: [shaking me awake] Honey, are you OK? You were screaming.

Me: Quick, where do I go to college and what kind of music does my roommate like?

Mom: You work part-time at Best Buy and your father and I like smooth jazz. Why?

Me: Oh thank God. Thank God so very much.

I hug them both as Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World" plays in the background.