Realization: You’ve stepped through the gates of Perdition. No, you haven’t been sucked into the after life, but actually, you have signed up for an eight month sentence in your worst nightmare. Welcome to the Residence Halls.

I’m struggling through this wide-awake nightmare right now. Word to the wise: get out as soon as you can!

University officials in Residential Life would like students to believe living in the dorms is like returning to the safety of the womb. It’s really more like being tied to a rotisserie that is slowly spinning over the flames of Hell.

Walking the drab, grey corridors of Draper or Jenkins halls is like walking through a prison cell block for the criminally insane. That feeling is reinforced when you arrive at your room and notice that it’s decorated in Early American Penitentiary, complete with cramped space, crappy bed, and communal toilet.

As you start unpacking your television and CD collection, your designated Roommate from Hell checks in. You cross your fingers hoping he’s not Dennis Rodman or someone who has loud sex with his girlfriend while you’re trying to sleep. This is not Pleasantville.

Soon you find out he likes to leave dirty laundry piling up in the closet. He thinks the entire suite is one huge trash can. He drops half-eaten sandwiches, used Kleenexes, and soda cans–with just enough soda left in them to leak a sticky, ant-attracting pool–on the floor.

Can we say, “Mommy, where are you?”

Two weeks into the semester, you think your head is about to explode. Not that anyone would notice if it did, since your splattered grey matter would just about match the mass of whatever it is Roommate from Hell left on a paper plate under his bed. Give me my own room, my own bathroom, or a roommate I can live with for more than a week without strangling them in his sleep!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot about Resident Advisors, A.K.A. bothersome busy bodies, A.K.A. babysitters, A.K.A. landlords. They’re fountains of wisdom, spouting rules that nobody follows. Sure, RES residents are slightly immature or overly dramatic, but we’re not ten years old. We would rather have these babysitters talk on the phone to their boyfriends or girlfriends like they usually do and leave us alone.

That stuff is annoying, but let’s talk safety. Remember last October, the controversial armed robbery in Jenkins Hall room 316? I do. They were my neighbors!

Despite locking security doors, unauthorized individuals come and go as they please. I assume they’re looking for friends most of the time. But some are probably predators — remember the guy who attacked a girl in the shower last year? — or just looking for trouble.

Property damage is a problem, too. Already there have been two reported cases of stolen vehicles, and we’re barely through week two of the semester. Advice: invest in The Club.

While living at home, I felt safe. Staying at Fort Jenkins, I feel vulnerable and exploited. Privacy is limited. Violence and crime are increasing.

What do RES life officials have to say about this? Apparently their job ends on the Friday at noon because I couldn’t find an RA, Hall Manger, or Hall Director who would talk to me. Many were gone over the weekend I was writing this and trying to get a quote. I guess nothing bad happens on the weekends, right?

Wrong. Are there any bright ideas from RES life in the works to insure better safety — who knows? I’ll attempt to reach them on Monday when they get back from their vacation in Tahoe.

What to do? Start apartment hunting. Or swallow your rebellious pride and go crawling back to Mommy and Daddy. Personally, I voted apartment. I’m already looking at ads in the paper.

My parole is in May. I can’t wait.