Based on the New York Times’ “Metropolitan Diaries,” the Middletown Diaries will include awkward, funny, novel, or sweet anecdotes, stories, or memories that happen at Wesleyan and in Middletown. To submit to the Middletown Diaries, please email srcohen@wesleyan.edu.

Dear Diary,

With communal bathrooms come a variety of new experiences, challenges, and at times, extremely awkward encounters. Last week, sometime after dinner, I donned my flip flops and fluffy towel and traipsed down the hall to engage in the timeless human practice of taking a shower. Usually I am alone in the bathroom while showering, although occasionally one of my hallmates is brushing their teeth or using the toilet. On this particular Thursday, though, I had company. I turned on the water and waited for it to warm up while one shower (or in more accurate terms, two small plastic barricades) away, my neighbor listened to a particularly raunchy comedy special on high volume. While I scrubbed my body and shampooed my hair, the comedian cracked jokes to get the crowd warmed up: nothing particularly funny, something about being socially awkward, and a bit about her teenage son. I quietly washed out my shampoo and reached for my conditioner, determined not to reveal that I was listening to every word of my hallmate’s shower entertainment. I succeeded in tuning out while the comedian launched into a psychological analysis of teenage boys, and was just about to finish toweling off when she burst out, “And they got CUM on the ROOMBA!” It was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud, at risk of encroaching on my neighbor’s sacred shower-stand-up-comedy time. I won’t miss many aspects of the communal bathroom lifestyle, but I don’t expect I will ever take another shower quite as entertaining. 

– Emma Smith

Dear Diary,

A central part of Wesleyan’s—let’s say, “weekend culture”—are the food carts outside Exley and off High Street. Recently, I noticed the addition of a barbecue truck and a pizza station and wanted to see if there were growing food truck tensions. Did the old trucks feel threatened by these young upstarts? To find out, I braved the cold last Friday to interview workers at the Whey Station as well as the Falafel truck to get the inside scoop. Unfortunately, everyone was deeply mature. And while this “the more the merrier” attitude may be great for world peace, it doesn’t make for a super exciting story. However, the night was not a total loss. I present to you now: drunk people stories! 

According to Dominik Beadles, the manager of the Mamoun’s Falafel, they used to put out heaters so when winter came people could still order food and eat it outside without freezing. However, heat and inebriated patrons didn’t mix. 

“One guy sat down on the heater, thinking it was a seat and lit his ass on fire!” Beadles explained. 

A lot of people at Wesleyan want to make their mark on the world, and this can sometimes create a culture of having a fire under your ass for no good reason. But please folks, don’t take everything so literally. 

I also heard from food truck proprietors a tale of someone trying to climb up onto the roof of the cart for a scavenger hunt, and another of someone almost crying in the middle of the street after dropping a full bottle of moonshine. That being said, everyone I spoke to reported that if someone was too out of it, they were successfully corralled by their friends and that the students overall were very sweet. I hope we can maintain this standard and keep the food trucks around, because if I can’t get tater tots late at night I will personally hunt down every rude customer and make them pay for their crimes. 

– Katarina Grealish

Dear Diary,

Political participation and drunken moshing: a marriage for the ages? It was Saturday night, nearing the weekend’s apotheosis. I was at a concert my friend had organized featuring an indie band from New York. Fresh off my hour of door duty and newly warm, I made my way into the crowd. As the band got ready to play, the singer engaged in the required small talk. “How you all doing tonight?”—that type of thing. Then the beanied frontman posed a more specific question: “You guys know Ben Florsheim?” The crowd erupted. Apparently someone in the band knew his cousin or had some similar sixth degree of separation. Then they got a chant going. The new mayor’s name rung out past the drunken masses, and the band began playing began in earnest. 

– Sophie Griffin