After the whole thing with N, I ended up in a different suite in the same building, with a girl who I got along with pretty well, for one semester. The following year, I roomed with another girl, Bernacki. This post is about her.
I should probably describe Bernacki a little. She’s a mad scientist (actually, an Environmental Science major, but which sounds cooler? Come on). She loves music and forces her favorites onto everyone within her general vicinity. She skipped her senior prom to go hunting. She’s a Democrat. She once killed a moose with her bare hands (I may have made that one up; I have a hard time remembering what was true about Bernacki and what I just told people about her). She has a crazy-religious Grandmother. She has a plush Bob the Builder toy on her desk. She’s a filthy thief.
| Oh God she's looking it right in the eyes |
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Bernacki and I had a much better relationship than N and I because, as much as she drove me crazy, I antagonized her just as much in return. Usually with my fists. I’m getting ahead of myself, though.
I first met Bernacki when I moved in with my second roommate; Bernacki lived with a girl named Megan in the other room in our suite. At our first dinner together, Bernacki asked what was in the potatoes. No one answered. After several quiet minutes, she mumbled menacingly, “It’s time.”
Holy Jesus, time for what? Fresh from my roommate-related nightmare, I suddenly imagined some horrific new-roommate hazing process these girls might employ mid-dinner.
| Please realize that I am trying to depict Bernacki as having curly hair, not as being a hobo without access to a hairbrush. |
“Time for what?!” I was clearly freaked out, much to my roomies’ amusement.
“No”, Bernacki explained. “Not time. It’s thyme. In the potatoes.”
Oh. And they never let me live that moment down.
Bernacki and I eventually settled into a happy routine. I would check her for chemical spills after her chem. lab and proofread her reports, we would hang out in between classes, sing Patsy Cline songs to annoy our suitemates, and just overall be ridiculous together. And then it happened. Bernacki finally showed her true colors. Her filthy, thieving colors.
| Soil-sample brown and moose-blood red |
About halfway through the semester, I noticed that I was missing a spoon. I only owned two spoons at the time, so for one to go missing was pretty noticeable. Of course, I asked Bernacki and our suitemates right away if they had borrowed it. They all said no. I cleared off my desk, moved it and looked behind it. I searched our bedroom, living room, and bathroom; I went through all of my things and checked at home to see if maybe I had brought it home one weekend for some reason and forgotten it; I wrote a philosophy paper on the effect of a lost spoon on one’s mental, physical, and emotional well-being. I could not find that spoon.
| So beautiful |
At first, I joked that Bernacki had taken the spoon, which was ridiculous… or was it? Who else had access to our bedroom when I wasn’t around? Our door was closed and locked when we were out. Perhaps Bernacki had a voracious appetite for cinnamon applesauce and had run out of clean spoons and borrowed mine, then threw it away to hide the evidence. Or maybe she was jealous of my spoons for their smooth, shiny spooniness, which she knew she could never rival. Maybe a spoon killed her dog, and she’s always held a grudge. Whatever her sick, sick reasons, I have never found that spoon. Even after we moved out at the end of the year, cleaned out the room, and searched it. That spoon is gone. I often implored Bernacki to return my poor spoon to me, but she cruelly refuses and she STILL insists that she never took it! Ha! As if I was stupid enough to believe THAT!
| Somehow, pictures of her with dead animals just feels so right. |
According to Bernacki, my righteously-placed anger manifested at night, while I slept. Allegedly, I woke her repeatedly by viciously beating her while we lay in our side-by-side beds. I believe that this is her weak attempt to paint me as the bad guy, to throw suspicion of spoon-thievery off of her. And even if it were true, I feel completely justified. Anyone who kidnaps a helpless spoon deserves whatever they get.
| Even in my sleep, I always keep it extremely real. |
Bernacki partially redeemed herself at the end of the year, when there was a cook-out going on. Our RD was outside at the grill, and my suitemates and I persuaded Bernacki to wear her waders outside and greet the RD like that. She did it, and I have pictures. If this doesn’t seem great to you, it’s because you’ve never seen Bernacki in chest-waders. All past indiscretions were nearly forgiven, but Bernacki ruined it later (by continuing to deny that she took the spoon). Now, all past indiscretions are very-much remembered.
| I had to use real photos, because nothing I make could have ever done this moment justice. |
Okay, I admit that I’m just being silly; Bernacki and I still get along pretty well, and we still live together (just not in the same room, but my current roommate is a story for next week). However, I do have one last encounter to relay:
It was the end of that year, and I was in the bathroom, cleaning up, while Bernacki and her family were carrying her things out. I said hi to them all, but focused on my very-important cleaning (which was actually most-likely a terrible idea; I was spraying cleaner that I probably should not have been inhaling within a small, contained area). When Bernacki was just about moved out, her mom stopped to say goodbye to me.
| Don't be concerned. I'm just stoned on bathroom cleaner. |
“Goodbye”, she said kindly. “It was so nice to meet a friend of Rebecca’s.” To which I responded:
“Yeah, it was nice- Wait, who’s Rebecca?”
Yeah, it turns out that “Bernacki” is her last name. And she won’t let me live that one down, either.
