The odd houseplant

This one's about one of my best friends, Dennis.  At this point I was living in a plce called LaMancha in Gainesville.  Dennis was one of my roommates (more stories about the others later).  These guys, like so many people in college and away from home, liked to play around with various drugs (nothing you can't grow yourself, though).  One day they decided to go shrooming.  This activity, for those who don't know, involved walking around a cow pasture examining piles of dung for a particular mushroom that, when eated or made into tea, can cause hallucinations.  They didn't have much luck that day, so Dennis decided to take matters into his own hands and brought home a cow patty.  He lovingly places this patty on a dish and put it on his windowsill (for those of you familiar with mushrooms, he always had his blinds closed).  He watered it and watched it, hoping to get a crop.  After a few weeks he forgot about it, and for a while thereafter had a dried up cow patty on his windowsill.  Ahh, college!

Another Charlie story, but meaner

Not all my stories are the kind you can laugh about.  This one is a short story that I didn't realize at the time was going to be a story.  It took me a little while after this encounter to realize what had happened..

This takes place before I saw Charlie in his drag outfit.  This is the story about how I found out he was gay.

Now, the thing about Charlie is that he wasn't hiding that he was gay.  He was fairly flamboyant, but I didn't want to make assumptions about anyone so I wasn't convinced he was gay despite the clues.  One day I was home by myself when the doorbell rang.  I go to answer it and there was a girl there, about our age, holding a notebook.  Here's the conversation and my thoughts at the time as best I remember them.

"Is Charlie here?" she asks.
"No, I don't think so."
"Well, I'm doing a story and I wanted to interview him."
"Really?  What about?"
"He's the secretary of the LGBT Union.  Did you know that?"

Here's what I realized later- I noticed at this point that she got a weird expression on her face, like she was getting ready to share a dirty secret with me that I was going to be chocked about.  She was ready to talk to me about my reaction to this as she dropped her bomb.  I know I pissed her off with what I did next:

"No, I didn't.  Do you want to leave a message?" with no reaction other than a sincere desire to take a message.

Her attempt at eliciting a reaction totally missed me until I thought about it later.  It didn't bother me at all, especially since I'd had suspicions.  At this point she said "No", and walked off.  I still smile today that I prevented her from getting what she was obviously after, a chance to do some gay bashing.  I don't know if she ever got to interview Charlie, but I hope not.

The first story!

I'm not recording these in any particular order, just as I remember them.  They'll probably cluster around a certain time as one thing reminds me of another, but that's it.  Anyway, here goes..

I'll start with one of my favorites to tell.  It was my first year of college and I was living in an apartment complex called the Courtyard (I skipped the whole dorm thing and don't regret it one bit).  Anyway, it was a few months in.  I was sitting downstairs one night with a few friends of mine- I don't remember all their names, but the one of interest is Sarah.  She's an extremely brash girl who just says whatever comes into her head..

Anyway, a little backstory.  I lived with three other guys- Jim, the wannabe musician; Charlie the guy with the super long hair; and one guy who's name escapes me, the Ska band trombone player.  Now this apartment had two sinks, which we shared.  I shared one with Charlie.  For a while I'd been seeing this stuff all over the sink, it resembled brown powder and I had no clue what it was.. until..

Charlie came walking down the stairs behind us.  He said hi and walked by.. in high heels, a mini-skirt, a tube-top, and all made up.  He made a pretty convincing girl, actually.  Once he left, and as soon as the door closed, Sarah turns back to us and says:

"He's prettier than I am!"

My wife's sister has started college and is going through all the pain I remember from my college days.  It made me think of the many, many stories I accumulated.  Here is where I will record all of them that I remember, and collect more from my friends who will undoubtedly remember some I forgot.  My pledge is that these are not exaggerated in any way and are exactly as I remember them.