In September 2010, The Argus commissioned me to interview the students living in my renowned freshman-year dorm room in Nicholson Five.

That meticulously-reported piece sparked a series of now-canonical Wespeaks, the most important of which was titled, “Clearly, I’m the Real Blowdryer Boy.”

This year, with some trepidation, I agreed to venture back to Nicholson for a second time.

Walking from Lo Rise to Foss on a rainy night is not possible for normal people because of the unpleasant feeling of cold rain and the sheer vertical distance. However, like Shackleton and his crew of bedraggled men on South Georgia Island, I attempted the journey.

I will likely never again have key-card access to Nicholson, so I peered through the windows, knocking vigorously, in search of a helpful lad or lass.

Upon my eventual entrance, all travails overcome, I found the room in question and noticed (via door-placards) that the two who now lived there are named Ian Carr ’15 and Reid Hildebrand ’15. Warm light and loud music emanated from within. I brushed away my tears of nostalgia and hastened inward forthwith.

The Argus: I once lived here. Can I ask you a few questions?

Ian Carr: Yeah, of course.

A: What are your Halloween plans?

Reid Hildebrand: Right now we’re thinking of being a slutty cop duo called the Neighborhood Watch, walking around with Huey Lewis and the News blasting on a ghetto blaster and arresting people with fuzzy handcuffs.

IC: I could be, like, a mournful Blues Brother. Mournful because my brother died. Or I think I could pull off slutty Rick Astley.

RH: That’s true.

A: How do you understand your spirituality?

IC: I don’t believe that any institution could possibly hope to understand any sort of greater being, and beyond that I’m just kind of going with Pascal’s Gamble. I figure it’s unlikely that there’s any sort of great being, but it’s not impossible.

A: That’s not Pascal’s Wager.

IC: For the time being, until I’ve thought about it more, I’m content to accept that perhaps there was a greater being who set creation into motion.

A: How did you guys meet?

RH: We met on the Internet, on the Wesleyan Facebook group. We were both early decision. The Facebook group setup has a group chat option, and we met each other through that, and from there we broke off into a rival Facebook group, called Can’t Stop Us 2015.

From that other Facebook group we branched off and created a Skype group with about 20 people, of about which only 10 showed up every once in a while.

A: How did you guys get so involved with talking to other incoming freshmen on Facebook?

RH: We were loud assholes, really. I’ve been recognized multiple times on campus by people who know me as “that guy on WesAdmits.”

IC: I was also “that guy” for a short amount of time.

A: Why did you want to be “that guy?”

RH: Shits and giggles, mostly. I felt like the best way to introduce myself to an entirely new group of people was just to throw myself into the ring and see what happens.

IC: I found that being smarmy and sardonic was a good way to endear myself to people. And we were pretty lonely over the summer.

RH: The Skype group has been hanging out almost every day since we moved in.

IC: We’ve kind of developed a nice, stable friend group.

RH: It’s been kind of fun to watch people who desire a stable friend group try to infiltrate out stable friend group.

IC: And succeed.

RH: We need more friends.

A: Where are you guys from?

RH: Charlottesville, VA.

IC: I’m from Boston.

A: Why do you think you guys hit it off?

RH: We both like hats.

IC: We both like hats and sunglasses. We have a lot of similar interests. We both want to be film majors. I’m film and music. He’s film and East Asian Studies.

RH: I don’t really like anime for what it’s worth. I’ve dabbled.

A: What made you want to come to Wesleyan?

IC: Arya Alizadah [’13] was my tour guide. He made me feel like I could live here, like this could be a home for me.

A: What’s your weirdest personal habit? I’ll give you an example: the kid who lived in this room last year used to dry his entire body with a blow dryer every time he showered.

RH: I talk to my plant sometimes.

A: What type of plant is it?

RH: It’s a bamboo plant.

A: What do you say to it?

RH: I tell it how things are going sometimes.

IC: It’s not like one of those asshole kudzu plants.

RH: Kudzu’s are dicks. I would never be polite to them.

A: I see you’ve moved both of your beds into one room. Any disadvantages?

RH: We’ve run into one problem. Two-and-a-half times.

IC: One-and-a-half.

RH: We’re thinking about buying a couch for the outer room, just to eliminate some of that problem. The first weekend of orientation, a couple friends and I were out having a good time and all of a sudden I just got dog-tired, so I found it necessary to come back and go to sleep immediately.

IC: He was dead set on this.

RH: Unfortunately when I got back, Ian and some broad were in there.

IC: She’s not a “broad”!

RH: Ian and some broad were in there.

IC: Please don’t call her a broad.

RH: I have a key, so I just opened the door. Nothing was too far progressed, but I still kind of interrupted things.

IC: We call him a dickmuzzle. He’s done this like four times now, including to himself.

A: Any other shenanigans to report?

IC: We called Taco Bell yesterday and asked for gefilte fish tacos.

RH: We’ll let you know when we organize a flash-mob or streak or something.

A: Do you know about the ACB?

RH: We found the ACB in February. We found it before it went Blipdar.

IC: We are loveable assholes.

A: That’s all for now. I have a paper due at midnight. Keep up the good work.

I left Nicholson Five with a heavy heart. Would that I were young again!

Back in my room, I went on WesAdmits Facebook group to read some Hildebrand wisdom. On August 25, some girl asked: “how do we get water? water fountain in each floor?”

Hildebrand wrote:

“Get ready, because this is a lot to pay attention to.

Step 1: You’re going to want to find a shovel. Preferably a sharp one.

Step 2: Call Michael Roth and make sure it’s safe to dig.

Step 3: Recruit some friends to help you dig, you’ll cover more ground.

Step 4: Brief your friends on the task at hand.

Step 5: Perform a rain dance together in case digging fails.

Step 6: Chant.

Step 7: While your friends are dancing, go find a faucet”

Sage words from a sage man. My room, I’m glad to say, is in able hands.