When my senior year of high school rolled around, it was time for me to start looking at colleges. I didn’t have any schools in mind; the only thing I knew was that I wanted to stay in Ohio to avoid paying out-of-state tuition. My GPA and test scores were high enough that I could easily get into any public university in Ohio, so I toured a couple of the biggest ones. At the time, the plan was to get a biology degree and then go to optometry school. I felt like it didn’t matter where I got my undergrad degree.
The most popular college in Ohio is probably Ohio State University, and I went there once to visit but didn’t like it. The enormous campus smelled unpleasant and everywhere I looked there was a group of students standing around beating themselves off to football.
I should have known Bowling Green wasn’t for me when the tour guides started a chant at the beginning of the presentation, but I stayed and walked the tour. Every person I came across turned out to be a fucking moron, so I crossed BG off the list.
When I went to look at Toledo, one of the chemistry professors took me on a tour of the facilities. We went down to Basement X where his lab was, and I felt so alone I thought I would die.
Kent State was far enough from my parents that I would be independent, but close enough to them that I could easily drive back and spend a weekend at home. It was also the school my girlfriend was probably going to go to. Despite hating people immensely, I don’t like to feel alone. Also, Kent offered me a scholarship that would take care of most of my tuition. A calculus teacher in high school who I really respected said to go where the money was.
I have been content enough with my decision to go to Kent State. There are some things I haven’t been thrilled about, though. For example, I received a Book Award from the University Bookstore which gave me $150 a semester to spend on, as you would probably guess, books. One semester I had $30 left over (because I only bought books for two of my six classes). I went to the bookstore to spend the rest of the money. After looking around for a little, I picked up a copy of David Sedaris’s new book. I went to the cash register and said I wanted to buy the book using my Book Award.
"You can’t use the Book Award on books,” the man behind the counter told me.
I stared at him blankly. I thought maybe he was joking - or retarded.
“It’s textbooks only,” he continued.
“Then why don’t you call it a Textbook Award?”
Another great thing Kent State did was during my junior year. The university administrators switched to what they called a Banner-ID system. Each student was given a Banner ID number; a nine-digit, unique number. Students were to use the number whenever scheduling, taking exams, or performing various other college-related activities. So, instead of using my name, I had to memorize a nine digit number someone else chose for me. Kent State effectively turned its own motto into “You’re just a number here at Kent State.”
I was surprised they didn’t just tattoo the numbers on the students’ arms.
My biggest problem with Kent State has been its lack of reasonable maintenance during winter. When I was living in a dorm on campus, the front entrance of my building was a constant sheet of ice. Walking into my room without falling and breaking my ass was harder than most of the exams I took that year.
Most of the other walkways were not cleared, either. Instead of spreading salt on the sidewalks to ensure minimal ice forms, Kent State’s maintenance people walked around with buckets of salt dropping clumps. They reached into the bucket, got a handful of ice, dropped it in a pile on the ground, walked ten feet, and repeated.
The parking lots were a mess, too. Usually, it would snow during the night, leaving just enough snow to cover the lines of the parking spaces in the morning. Kent State didn’t bother plowing; students were left to guess where the parking spots were. This generally resulted in some fuckwad in a Jeep taking up three spaces.
The worst winter incident was during my freshman year:
I lived on campus during my freshman year (in the building with its own ice rink). I brought my car with me, the 1995 Lincoln Towncar I got from my great uncle after my great aunt passed. Because I was a freshman, I had to park my car at the stadium, which was almost two miles away from the campus. During the weekends, however, freshmen were permitted to leave their cars in the parking lots on campus. My girlfriend and I would take a bus out to the stadium on Friday, pick up my car, go on various excursions, drive the Towncar back to the stadium on Sunday, and catch a bus back to campus.
One cold Friday, the two of us went out to the stadium. We got off the bus and walked to my car. We hurriedly got in to avoid the cold, and I started the engine. When I put it in reverse, the car didn’t move. The wheels spun, but there was no traction. I got out of my car and looked around. It looked like someone had constructed ice wedges and put them underneath my back two wheels. I got back in the car and tried again. I could smell my tires burning, but I still wasn’t moving. I told my girlfriend to try while I pushed the car from the front. I was a 160 pound freshman. It was a 4,000 pound Towncar. It wasn’t happening.
A boy scout would have been prepared and had some salt in his trunk, but in my youth I was too busy having a life and talking to girls to ever join those tools. All I had in my car were a couple of toothpicks, some gum, and a pair of red, fuzzy pimp-dice hanging from my rearview mirror (it was a Towncar, I practically had to).
A few minutes later, we saw a Parking Services truck driving around. We flagged down the driver, and he came over.
“You have any salt in that truck?”
“Um, I’ll have to check.” He got out and walked to the truck bed. “Sorry, it doesn’t look like I’ve got anything.”
How perfect.
He suggests that we try and push the car out. I told him I tried and it wasn’t moving. He took out his walkie-talkie and one-adam-twelved some help. He said someone was coming with salt in a few minutes. I thanked him and he drove off.
Twenty minutes later, we were still sitting there. I called Parking Services myself. They said they were sending someone out.
After thirty minutes, I called again. No one answered.
Forty minutes later, the first kid came back, doing another routine check of the perimeter, still sans salt. I flagged him down again.
“What the fuck, man?”
“They aren’t here yet?”
No, dickhead. They came thirty minutes ago. I’m just standing out in the parking lot because I read frost bite is great for the reproductive system.
“I’ll call them again,” he continued.
About ten minutes later, another truck finally showed up. The kid got out of the truck and put about two shovelfuls of salt under each one of my wheels. My girlfriend got behind the wheel, and the three of us pushed from the front. The wheels got some traction, and the car left the spot.
I thanked the kid who brought the salt, and resisted the urge to blindside the first kid with a shovel. We drove the car back to campus, looking for more places to get stuck.
So, if you’re looking for a college where you can spend an hour standing around a parking lot in the dead of fucking winter, Kent State could be for you.
And they aren’t even paying me to say that.
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