How I Found Out
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October 1999
Have you ever woken up and started what you thought was going to be just a normal day filled with mundane tasks but by the end of the day your life has completely been turned upside down? I had a day like that in October of 1999 and my life hasn’t been the same since. I wish now that I could remember the date or anything at all about it. What was I wearing? What was the weather like? But nope, nothing, nada. It’s all a blank. The only things that stick out from that day are peanut butter pinwheel candies and butterscotch haystacks. A normal October Friday night trip back home to get recipes for some simple desserts to take to a workplace Halloween party later in the month. I was 19 and definitely not a cook, but I thought I could manage these candies because it wasn’t really cooking or baking. I knew these candies from my childhood because my step-grandfather made butterscotch haystacks with chow mein noodles and melted butterscotch chips. My kind of recipe! I can’t remember who made the pinwheels, probably my grandmother, but I could remember what they were supposed to look like and that no oven was involved. There was room for error in these dummy-proof candy recipes. Surely I could assemble these ingredients into something edible for a party with my work friends. The peanut butter pinwheels might have been more of a challenge, but armed with recipes from home, I figured I could manage a unique dessert from my childhood to share with my friends.
In October of 1999 I was 19 years old, a sophomore in college, and living in my first place with 3 roommates. The previous year, my freshman year, I lived in a dorm on the local college campus. Once freshman year ended, I needed somewhere to live because I was absolutely not moving back home so I went across the street from the university to an office that matched students to others who were seeking roommates. On my application I put non-smoker, non-drinker and was matched with K, whom I met at a nearby BP gas station. She seemed safe and friendly enough, so I drove with her to see the condominium. As it turned out, her parents had bought it as an investment property while she lived in one of the rooms. It had 4 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms, a shared kitchen, laundry, and living room common area. K was a year or two ahead of me in school and was working at a local catering company. Her family was from Raleigh, about 3 hours away from Charlotte. One of the other girls, J, was a middle-school education major, and worked at a daycare. The third roommate was moving out soon and I never met her, which probably should have set off warning bells. But I couldn’t move back home and I had just spent freshman year sharing a bathroom with 11 other girls and a tiny cinderblock room with a roommate. I needed space of my own. J and K seemed nice enough. They told me that they only smoked outside and didn’t drink all that much. I loved having my own room with a closet and for the first time in my life, my own bathroom. I liked hanging out with my new roommates, watching The Price is Right after our morning classes or just sitting outside chatting on the balcony. K and J quickly accepted me and a couple of times over the summer we even piled in J’s tiny red two-door car to go out to dinner together. I was thrilled and willing to overlook the warning bells going off in the back of my mind. I should have known not meeting the girl that was moving out, the smoking, and the drinking were going to become issues for me.
Another girl, L, moved in a while after I did, to fill the fourth bedroom. I remember when she came to visit, looking down from the 3rd floor balcony, watching 2 girls drive up, and hoping L was the redheaded girl that would be my new roommate. L was not the redhead and her moving in marked the beginning of dealbreaker issues for me. She was more of a partier and tipped the scales from the workable if not comfortable dynamic I had with K and J. I had been living there for about 5 months and while things were pretty good over the summer, conditions were becoming unlivable for me by the middle of the fall semester. What I signed on for was each of us having our own bedroom and bathroom and we would share the living room, have assigned cabinets and fridge space in the kitchen, and something of a laundry schedule. They told me they didn’t smoke inside and drinking was confined to weekends. During the summer, this was fairly accurate,, but each of my roommates was having their own personal problems and heavy drinking and partying became a nightly occurrence. Some days I would be getting up to head to my job at the vet and they were still up drinking and smoking. And when the weather cooled, they all smoked inside, despite advertising the apartment as non-smoking. K got her third DUI, lost her license, and relied on me sometimes to drive her places. With all three of them smoking like chimneys, even hiding in my room with the door closed wasn’t enough to keep it out. This, combined with them eating what little food I was able to afford, I began living completely inside my room, emerging only to go to work and school. I began keeping my food in my mini-fridge I’d brought from the dorm and became a hermit.
I won’t claim I was the perfect roommate. Looking back now, I can see I was barely functioning as an adult. I hardly knew how to operate the washer and dryer. I had only recently learned how to do my laundry by watching other students use the laundry area in the basement of our dorm. We had a washer and dryer in my childhood home, but my grandmother didn’t want me to even touch them because she was certain I would break them. I definitely didn’t know how to use the dishwasher since my family didn’t have one at home. I also had weird work schedules where I worked one job until 2 am or when I worked at the vet I had to start work at 7 am, so I would try to be as quiet as possible. I moved in with my own dishes and bought my own food. I stored my food in the kitchen in my assigned areas and didn’t bother my roommates’ food. If one of my roommates’ laundry was left in the dryer, I would carry it and leave it on their bed. I never went into their rooms when they weren’t home, except to take their laundry to their rooms. I was there for K when she lost her license and needed me to drive her places, up to a point. When K was in a car accident, she rear-ended the car in front of her while digging between the seats for her cell phone and I was the one she called to come pick her up. I was the one who listened to a drunk K when she caught her boyfriend cheating on her yet again. I took J to work early one morning when she had car trouble. I paid my rent on time, even after I moved out of my room, and continued paying my portion of the utilities. I probably wasn’t the perfect roommate, but I was trying.
I was a sophomore in college and working part-time as a kennel assistant. I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, and becoming a veterinarian had been a dream job when I was younger because we always had so many dogs and cats, but my grades and lack of interest in science meant that wasn’t an option for me. I happened upon this job through the college career center after my failed stint working at Applebee’s. I worked a trial day without pay, cleaning cages and walking dogs, to see if I was a good fit. I guess I impressed the owner with my willingness to work a day for free, my trainability, and a couple of phrases in Japanese (his request) because I got hired.
I really enjoyed working as a kennel assistant even though most of my job duties revolved around poop and working a somewhat bizarre schedule. I worked afternoons once I’d finished my classes, the 7 am Saturday shift, and a split shift on Sundays — 7 am until around 10 am, then 3 pm until 5 or 6 pm, however long it took to feed, water, and take all of the dogs out while cleaning cages with one other person. I cleaned cages, fed and took the dogs out to the fenced-in yard. I cleaned their dishes and bowls. I sprayed down and squeegied the kennel floors with diluted bleach. I gloved up and cleaned the instruments the assistants used to perform fecal exams. My favorite thing I always volunteered to do was to go pick up poop from the yard. It was one of the rare moments of peace where I could just think. Sometimes I’d take my favorite dogs outside for a little extra playtime and for canine company. Not that I didn’t like my coworkers, I really did. Everyone was friendly and fun to chat with, but some days I just needed to think and scooping poop in the yard was my “me” time.
These were some of the best people I ever worked with and even over 20 years later, I still have dreams about working in the kennel.
I was dating M, a guy a little older than I was (I remember him being maybe a year or two older, but now I know he was four years older), who lived in the apartment complex just up the road. M was short, a bit overweight, balding in his early 20s, but he was easygoing and kind to me. I think he might have been a year ahead of me and he was studying computer science and we had both studied Japanese. I hadn’t decided on a major but Japanese was my minor in college. His family was from Wilkesboro, North Carolina, a little over an hour north of the university and he had been commuting back and forth to classes. We met one night while hanging out with the guys that lived next door to us, P. I think M was in the same program studying with P and had wandered over to their apartment one night after class ended. M seemed nice and said he was planning to move into the complex just up the street. We agreed to meet once he’d settled in. We didn’t go out much because M preferred cooking at home, which suited me because I didn’t have much money or time between work and classes. He and I would go to the Food Lion near campus to buy chicken, salad ingredients, and the seasoning packets to make Good Seasons Italian dressing. I felt fancy making our own salad dressing in the glass cruet that came with the kit. From him I learned how to at least cook this one meal, which was a big deal since I didn’t know how to cook much more than barely edible white rice.
Until then my idea of cooking was nuking a pile of shredded cheddar cheese on Triscuits or eating overcooked rice drizzled with soy sauce. My family had a complicated relationship with food and a phobia of the microwave. I wasn’t allowed to use the microwave or stove without supervision so learning to cook chicken with M was a major improvement on my repertoire.
I met M’s family a couple of times. One drizzly fall afternoon we drove while listening to Tori Amos to meet all of his relatives. His family was a lot like mine, though my family came from a different area in the North Carolina mountains. His parents were divorced. His dad lived in a prefabricated home that back then was probably less fancy than we consider pre-fabricated today and more like a double-wide trailer. I was at ease with them because much of my family had lived in trailer parks. Another time he drove me up to buy a shitty used car from his possibly sketchy dad. His dad had a lot of used cars and junk cars on his property and I was in desperate need of a better car.
At the time I had a light blue Chevrolet Corsica with a lot of wear and miles on it, since I was at least the third owner. That poor car shook at high speeds and died at stop lights. I had to stop a ways back at a red light and let it roll ever so slowly or else it would just stop running completely. The gas gauge never worked and so I was supposed to write down and calculate my mileage, but being a teenager, I rarely did this and would just guesstimate based on how long it had been since I last filled my tank. It was only by some miracle I never was stranded.
So I bought a used black Pontiac Grand Am from M’s father. I wrote his father the check, I think for $1500, and he had me sign over the notary seal, which should have made me reconsider the deal. It has over 100,000 miles on it, which I knew, but what I didn’t know was that the check engine light was going to become a constant companion as I drove back and forth to school and work. On the plus side, this car at least had a tape player, so I bought a tape to CD converter so I could at least listen to CDs while I ignored the check engine light.
Nothing was going what I’d call super-great in the fall of 1999, looking back, but I was happy enough. I had a slightly better car and an alright boyfriend. I was starting my sophomore year taking classes and pondering possible majors. I had my own apartment, even with less than promised living conditions, it was at least my own space. I liked my job at the vet. I was learning to cook a couple of new foods and when and how to do my own laundry, which was good because I often came home covered in mud and dog poop.
Things were okay enough. I had no idea what I was doing with my life, but I felt like I was figuring it out.
As Halloween of 1999 approached, someone at work decided we were going to have a party at their house, a potluck, and I was invited. Having a huge sweet tooth, I signed up to bring desserts — those damned peanut butter pinwheels and butterscotch haystacks. I called home and asked my step-grandfather and grandmother if I could come and copy the recipes one Friday night.
What I didn’t know was that this trip home was going to change my life forever.
