Katie Fullerton ’28
Staff Writer
It was a Friday night. You returned from yet another failed Claremont Crawl to your princess palace of a Scripps bedroom—a room adorned with lace curtains, a Jellycat army for your “inner child,” and a band poster of a singer who understood you better than most humans ever could. Your Scripps dorm was your happy place, safe from literal and metaphorical coyotes… feral coyotes…
You just finished massaging the daylight out of your face with a foaming facial cleanser (because God forbid what would happen if you forgot to remove your makeup), brushing your teeth to shine brighter than the fluorescent lights on the second floor of Honnold Library, and settling into the sweet solitude of an empty dorm. One roommate was MIA; the other had vanished for the weekend. Peace. Silence. Alone at last.
But just as your internal monologue lulled you to sleep, a shriek shattered the calm. Coyotes?! A break-in?! Nope. It was your roommate.
“Help! Help!” she cried, bursting through the door.
“What’s wrong?! Are you okay?” you asked, adrenaline spiking as if you chugged five Motley matchas.
“I saw him at the party,” she wailed, referring to the person she’d been obsessing over for weeks. “He ignored me all night! But he just texted and wants to hang out. Now.”
It was 2 a.m., and you knew what was coming next.
“Should I go? What should I wear?”
The first question was rhetorical — of course, she was going. The second? A minefield. She stood there in her My Little Pony (Friendship is Magic) pajama pants and oversized Shrek T-shirt, eyes wide with hope.
“Am I fine like this?” she asked earnestly.
You wanted to say yes. You wanted to tell her that love — real love — wouldn’t care about her outfit. But deep down, you knew that wasn’t the game at play here. Love at 2 a.m. was rarely unconditional; it was transactional. It went as quickly as it came.
“Maybe throw on a hoodie?” you nervously suggested, straddling the line between honesty and enabling. “Or you could throw on your Brandy set — you know the one with the red hearts? That’s always a hit!”
After trying on and turning down all of your suggestions, she returned to her own and looked in the mirror with a content look of pride.
She hesitated. “Should I just change back into jeans? A cute top?”
And there it was — the existential crisis disguised as wardrobe indecision. If he really liked her, did it matter what she wore? But if it didn’t matter, why hadn’t he spoken to her at the party? Was this a test of authenticity or yet another testament to his inability to communicate?
“Do you feel confident in what you’re wearing now…?” you hesitatingly squeaked, deflecting.
“Yes!”
“Then go!” you proclaimed, forcing a smile of false approval, hoping confidence and authenticity would be her best accessory…?
Your roommate exits with a tragic floordrobe of all the basic, microtrends that make up your combined closet. You shake your head and cover your mouth while she struts out the door, her My Little Pony sweats with a pink tail made of polyester hair wagging behind her, harshly contrasted by her swamp green oversized Shrek T-shirt, all completed by her Plush jumbo dunks.
By next Friday, there was no follow-up text. No second “date” materialized.
And as much as you wanted to blame yourself for not insisting on jeans and a cute top, you realized: if he couldn’t see her sparkling personality hidden behind the tail, maybe he wasn’t worth seeing at all.
She sobbed in our room, “Now I can never wear this outfit again; it will remind me of him.”
You try to console her: “maybe it’s for the best?”
“You’re right. he wasn’t that great anyways,” she nodded.
You smile, secretly knowing you were referring to the outfit…
