Old friends, old challenges

Michelle, my college roommate and I were inseparable.

All the things we had in common were all the ugly parts of our personalities that most normal people strive to keep in check. We were wild, and wildly self-destructive. To this day, Julie remains convinced that we were "lovers" (ew, hate that word) but we most certainly were not. We may have been kindred spirits bent on self-annihilation, but that's about all.

We used to have challenges, like, all the time. We'd go out for the night, and while listening to Cannonball and putting makeup on, one of us would say, "You know, I feel like hooking up tonight." The other would concur and upon arrival at the bar, we'd make our selections, and then proceed to take the object of our affections home.

Some of our more disgusting challenges were as follows. When I was in college, Doritos was launching a billion different flavors, which quickly died out. I remarked to Michelle, fellow Doritos lover, that one could eat nothing but Doritos and never get bored because of all the options. She said, "Let's see how long we can do it." For five days we existed on nothing but booze, pot, cigarettes and five flavors of Doritos. If my memory serves me correctly, we only stopped because Kyle came over and saw us smoking from the four-foot bong on the pull-out couch and eating Doritos on the final day and said, "You guys are disgusting. Get dressed. I'm taking you to Taco Bell."

Our other challenge was even more vile, but much more impressive. Michelle looks over at me one night and says, "How many night in a row do you think we could go out and get trashed before we just can't do it anymore?" Incidentally, it was three and a half weeks. I can't even do three days now, which is probably a good thing.

Is it any wonder we both had nervous breakdowns halfway through our senior year and decided we were not healthy influences on one another?