Time to Make the Donuts

Dunkin’ Donuts was a big part of my college life. It’s not especially healthful, and I’m not proud of it, but for the better part of two years my diet consisted of: French vanilla coffee with cream and sugar, diet coke, oodles of noodles, and pizza.
My roommate Sara and I hit the Dunks in Saratoga daily. Sara had a car and so we’d take orders for all of Wilmarth before trudging through the snow and cold to get our fix.

During finals, of course, our dpd (Dunks per Day) increased exponentially. This had less to do with an actual need for caffeine and more to do with diversion, distraction, and denial. Each trip provided the perfect excuse for procrastination. We needed energy to study, right? It was in our best interest to get coffee. How else would we stay awake to cram and prepare for our end of term exams?

So there we were, two 18 y ear olds avoiding the few responsibilities we had, treking off to buy coffees. It struck me as so odd. There we were, 18 years old, given the great privilege of doing relatively nothing for 4 years. Shipped off to live together, create a small community and all that was asked off us was that we study and learn. And yet, here we were refusing to do even that. Of course, being 18 and incredibly self-involved, I quickly pushed the thought out of my mind.

Until yesterday.

When I heard about the massacre at Virginia Tech I instantly thought of my neighbor’s sister. Her famous quote, “I loved going to Tech. 4 years living alone on Daddy’s dime.” And that’s what it should be. 4 years of getting your sea legs and transitioning from childhood to adulthood. It’s called the Ivory Tower for a reason. Eat nothing but sodium filled foodstuffs, drink your face off, stay up all night having incredible bullshit sessions where you solve the world’s problems and uncover the secret of life. Or, as my mother would say, “there’s a time and a place for everything, and that place is college.” It is not, however, a place to die.