Woolfy
My first year roommate bought a subwoofer. This seems like a very simple statement, but if you knew exactly the kind of havoc this subwoofer wrecked on my life, you wouldn’t disregard it in such a nonchalant manner.
As previously stated, Kindyl bought a subwoofer. When she lugged it into our room after Christmas break my immediate thought was “OH HELL YA WE GOT A COTTON CANDY MACHINE”…after the initial excitement of my mistake wore off, I was a little puzzled as to why we had this neon plastic bubble taking up so much space in our already cramped dorm room.
“What’s the…uh…point?” I jumped on my bed and crossed my arms, immediately unimpressed.
“It makes it so you can feel the music.” Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my Kindyl. She has opened my eyes to organic kelp and she makes me really awful green smoothies in the morning and she checks on me when I’m sick. But Kindyl and I are nothing alike. I don’t eat little green cultures because they provide mass amounts of nutrients, I don’t buy mint hemp soap from Whole Foods, I have never successfully rocked a pair of combat boots in my lifetime, I had no idea what the hell Pretty Lights was until I came to college.
“I don’t give an [explicative] about feeling the music.” I said sarcastically. “Find me a machine that helps me feel the pizza rolls.”
Kindyl, in typical Kindyl fashion, rolled her eyes at me.
“Just you wait.” She said, placing her hands on her hips. “This thing is gonna bring us tons of fun.”
If there is one thing I don’t question Kindyl about, it is fun. She is the type of person who would make sitting at the DMV on a Saturday a blast. So, in spite of all my better judgment, I decided to make peace with the subwoofer and let it set up camp in that particular corner of our room.
And here we are folks, months later, still going strong with the Woolfy (as I affectionately call him). We play him on Friday nights, Saturday mornings, in between classes on random Tuesdays. We play Rick Ross, Passion Pit, Taylor Swift, Céline Dion. We play him at parties. We play him during study sessions. At some point at any time of the day someone’s laptop/iPhone/iPod is plugged into the ‘woofer and we are – in the words of the once great Will Smith – gettin’ jiggy wiff it.
The subwoofer, as Kindyl has promised, has brought me countless memories. He was there on my nineteenth birthday when we threw an impromptu strobe light dance party. He was there during finals week, when Usher’s “Climax” was set on repeat and absolutely no studying got done. He was there when we moved from our quaint little set up on McCormick to our new and improved location at the Fred. In fact, Woolfy was the first thing we set up in our apartment. No sofas, no chairs, not even a coffee table. Just Woolfy plugged in and on the floor, blasting music in our white-walled apartment.
He was there during midsummers, when we were all reminiscing about first year and trying to prepare ourselves both mentally and physically for the upcoming catastrophe second year was going to be. He was there after the Penn State game, when our home was filled with school-spirited strangers. He was there at Liz’s 20th birthday party; and as she mourned her teens, he gracefully blasted Hoodie Allen’s “No Interruption.” Woolfy has been there at every major event in my lifetime. And at each and every one he has been loved and admired. He is, among the inhabitants of the Fred, somewhat of a local celebrity.
And even though I’m still working on the whole “Machine That Enables Me to Really Get Intimate with my Pizza Rolls” thing, I’m pretty satisfied with all that Woolfy has to offer me. So, my dear friends, as I venture further into second year and a plummeting GPA, at least I will have Woolfy and the mems. And if the residents of the Fred crank him loud enough, I guess in a way we all have that.
