Dorm room seafood boils
The stench of poor choices
I was scrolling through TikTok (when am I not?) and came across a video of someone making a seafood boil in their dorm. A freaking seafood boil. With lobster and shrimp and everything. In a hot plate. To think, all the days I lamented not having a full kitchen, how I lived off mac and cheese and fries sophomore year because I was so repulsed by the lukewarm, plastic-wrapped options in my COVID-restricted dining hall.
This video burned me up because I wish I had been more creative. I wish, instead of moping about limited food choices, I had actually taken the initiative to consider an alternative to my dining hall.
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When I told my friends about the account, “Lazy Pot Noodle,” they told me those videos weren’t real. They were just made to sell the hot plate. And even if they were, any roommate would despise living with someone who makes a full seafood boil in their dorm.
This was all true, I realized. But the video still had me thinking about college, and all the ways I may have squandered my experience. What other hacks did I miss out on?
In a mere few seconds of scrolling through old photos, I can see that I had many wonderful college moments, enough to chalk up to a fulfilled experience. I never made shrimp on a hot plate, but I did have a mini waffle maker my roommate and I used to make waffles for everyone on our floor. I love talking about how my floor neighbors and I gathered in our lounge every Wednesday to watch American Horror Story in our pajamas. And this was only freshman year. I had four years to be proud of, despite any setbacks.
The COVID years of college were difficult for me, as they were most kids my age. I hated living in uncertainty, unsure whether my college experience, or life, would ever look normal again. We obsess over making the most of our lives, yet some things are out of our control. My sophomore year of college didn’t have football games or concerts, and there wasn’t anything I could do to change that. And then, I see someone boiling lobster in their dorm, and I wonder if I could have been more optimistic. If I hadn’t been so upset all the time, maybe I would have come up with ideas to better my situation.
Whenever I have these thoughts, I remember what I did accomplish sophomore year: I worked at The Daily Orange and had a lot of laughs and late nights with my friends on staff, even from six feet apart. I took walks and explored the quarry and made a few trips up to a water tower on South Campus. My roommates and I lived in a four-person suite, where we binged episodes of a Norwegian teen drama, Skam. I took up skiing again and joined student groups on biweekly trips to nearby slopes. So maybe I wasn’t as pessimistic as I remember. Maybe there’s less space to wish I did more after all.
Regret over choices you couldn’t possibly predict the outcome of is a waste of energy (More on this later). Sometimes I think I should have joined a sorority, but how could I know for sure it would have made my experience that much better? I can’t. The same way I can’t know if my hot plate would have caused an electrical fire in my dorm. Now that I think about it, I don’t think hot plates were allowed, more evidence not to trust everything you see on social media.