Room: Sorority House, 39th and Walnut. 3rd floor triple.
Room cohabitants: College sophomores Suzie Cohen of Houston, Texas, Emily Lerman of Potomac, Maryland and Wharton Sophomore Sam Katz of Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
This is from the new Britney Spears single: "I know I may be young but I've got feelings too,/ and I need to do what I feel like doing./ So let me go." That doesn't rhyme. I don't understand.
Sam: Well, I appreciate the fact that you are looking at the art instead of all my other male friends, who are just like. . . "she was wet in that vinyl thing on HBO."
Suzie: I hear she is 24 and they just market her as 20.
Emily: And if you think about it, Britney Spears is pure art... at its finest.
Suzie: I just love how she caters to American 8-year-olds and how my little cousins are prancing around in bikinis...
Emily: And call it a shirt?
Sam: Did you guys see the Rolling Stone? I bought it on my way up to New York City.
That's quite a picture.
Sam: The guy at the magazine store told me they were selling like hot cakes...
Suzie: Hot cakes? [laughs]
Emily: Is that a southern thing?
Suzie: I don't know.
Emily: Hot cake? You've never heard of a hot cake?
Suzie: Slapjacks are my favorite.
Emily and Sam: Who are you?
Emily: What the hell is a slapjack? [Suzie laughs uncontrollably.]
Slapjacks?
Emily: Suzie will just bust out with random Texas phrases every once in a while and we have no idea what she is talking about.
Suzie: That's not a Texas phrase, trust me...
What are slapjacks?
[incoherent, muddled conversation among the three]
What the fuck are you talking about?
[incoherent muddled conversation among the three]
Emily: Huh?
(Editor's note: The Oxford English Dictionary defines "slapjack" as "a griddle-cake, a flapjack or a flat cake.")
Suzie: Sorry it's so hot in here BTW.
Sam: BTW.? [laughs hysterically]
Suzie: BFD. That's my latest, too.
Emily: What's BFD?
Suzie: Big fuckin' deal. My mom says it.
Emily: You also say TTYL.
You say TTYL.?
Emily: And BRB. [explodes into laughter].
Suzie: My mom typically says, "Big fuckin' deal," but I...
(A random girl walks into the room. She adds nothing to the conversation.)
Emily: She lives in the erotic triple.
(Girl leaves.)
Suzie: ...and HRPs
What are HRPs?
Emily: High rise peeps.
Sam: High rise peeps.
Suzie: Who started that?
Emily: Miriam said it to [Sam].
Sam: A girl in our house used the phrase HRPs in our house Tuesday night, so I took it.
Emily: Everyone was home for the weekend. I guess it was a random crowd [at Smoke's] and she said HRPs.
Sam: Yeah, it was me and Connie Chung. She's in Theta. You can put that in. And Miriam.
Her name is Connie Chung?
Sam: Yeah. Can I tell you "the Connie Chung story"?
Go.
Sam: OK. I got into music from Guster, the band Guster. And they gave out rep names, and Brian [of Guster] gave me the rep name Connie Chung, like the newscaster, because he's from Connecticut and so is she. And I met this girl Connie Chung who is in Wharton, and she happens to be the girl from Theta and she's really cool. And her name is also Connie Chung. And that's my Guster reference.
Suzie: Does this story have a climax?
Emily: That was the worst story EVER!
Suzie: The pinnacle didn't quite connect.
Emily: You are banned from storytelling!
It wasn't so much a story as it was a...
Emily: Fragment.
Sam: But the point of the story is that Connie is also a huge Guster fan!
Oh my God. Shut up right now.
Sam: And that's how I met her... from Guster.
So do either of you [Suzie or Emily] want to speak now?
Suzie: Sam likes to be the dominatrix of the room.
Really? That's kind of hot. How else is that manifested?
Suzie: [laughs loudly] Whoa!
Emily: No, the erotic triple is downstairs.
Why are they the erotic triple?
Emily: They just have this dynamic...
An erotic dynamic?
Emily: They just like to call themselves the erotic triple.
Sam: I think they get off on it.
Are all these sorority chapter meetings really just tickle fights and late-night showings of Say Anything?
Sam: It's just pillow fights and pajamas.
Suzie: We just bring our pillows and have pillow fights...
Kind of like our apartment actually.
Suzie: ... and girl talk. Clothes come off.
Wait. That's nothing like our apartment. We start with our clothes off.
Sam: No, we just go over announcements like every other meeting. Not that exciting. It's cool 'cause you get to see everyone.
How do you feel about Texas no longer being the capital of the Dirty South?
Suzie: Did that change? I didn't know.
I heard it was Atlanta now.
Emily: Atlanta isn't that dirty. It's pretty northern.
Suzie: Texas will always be the capital of the country, as far as I'm concerned. . . . I just think that we are our own separate, dominating force. I can't explain it. I just think I have this elitist, superior-type attitude being from Texas.... Texas will always be the capital of the Dirty South, and Atlanta Shmatlanta.
How often do you guys remember the Alamo at your house?
Suzie: About once a week. We remember it at the end of grace.
Sam: You don't say grace.
Emily: The Alamo?
Sam: I can't believe you don't know that.
Suzie: She's the Soc. major. It's OK.
Wait. Do you not know what it is?
Emily: Uh-uh [shakes head no].
Suzie: [yells] Remember the Alamo! The famous battle in 1836!
Sam: Oh no.
Emily: Wait, what are we talking about?
The Alamo.
Emily: That sounds like something I should know.
Ever hear of Davy Crockett?
Emily: [after a short pause, nods yes]
Suzie and Sam: [singing] "Davy... Davy Crockett! King of the wild frontier!"
Sam: Take a history class.
Take a fifth-grade social studies class.
Emily: I'm sure I learned about it sometime in my life.
If you could characterize your room as a vegetable, what would it be?
Suzie: We decided on fried okra.
Emily: Why?
Suzie: Because it's the best thing one could ever eat.
Emily: Regardless, we're like garlic because we leave a lasting impression.
Suzie: We don't give lasting bad breath, do we?
Emily: We are edamame!
Sam: How would you describe your room?
I don't know. We've never thought about it. It's a stupid question anyway.
