Late at night, many of us find ourselves pondering life's big questions: What is the meaning of life? Who's really behind that damn Tights-as-Pants Phenomenon? Why is there so much more caramel corn in the popcorn tins, when everyone knows cheese is the only kind worth eating, even if it is far too salty for extended consumption? Why doesn't he call when he says he'll call? If not drugs(hard or otherwise...soft? easy?), what does a normal college student do on a bored Friday night alone?
Most of those questions may never be answered by Science. But fortunately, your Intrepid and Bold Investigator has, in a stellar example of admirable Take-One-For-the-Team Attitude, selflessly investigated the latter. You're welcome.
College is a fun, experimental time for most people. It involves making EXTREMELY poor choices, such as spending your parents Life Savings on pot and snowboarding, or having lots of promiscuous sex pretty much as a result of the fact that womanhood is basically synonymous with free alcohol. It involves going to parties where you come closer to death than you ever will until you're actually dying, either via alcohol poisoning or drunken stupidity ('Want to streak through that frozen field? No way that ice is gonna crack, bra!'). It involves spontaneous road trips with friends to alarmingly small towns with names like Grant's Pass, Oregon, or Hoquiam, Washington. Ever heard of them? Didn't think so. I hadn't either.
Problem is, except for that last, those behaviors are all sharply discouraged by Mormon church leaders, parents, and, indeed, many faithful LDS students themselves. But while most bored college kids are taking their clothes off with other bored college kids, or going to bars seeking to forget the state of their credit ratings, what are Mormon kids supposed to do, anyway? In groups, they eat cookies and play games like Scattergories and Scrabble. If they live on the edge, they have a bonfire or other gathering at which they drink Thomas Kemper root beer in an effort to trick their minds- the logic is that if a bottle looks like an alcohol bottle, it probably makes their experience more fun. (In my experience, usually the 'more fun' leads to somebody jumping straight through the main surface of the trampoline and then what's anybody supposed to do?)
While 'gentile' girls are 1. realizing he's not going to call, 2. getting skanked out and 3. going to bars where they will boost their self-esteem by having drinks purchased for them by pre-middle aged men who never left the town where they took a year and a half of college classes, the typical Mormon girl is home, either with her roommates or, if she's a little sadder, by herself. But while those other girls are about to have a crap-tacular Saturday, in which they waste the first six usable hours of the day sleeping (or possibly throwing up), the Mormon girl is preparing to actually enjoy her weekend, and more than that, she betters herself. She reads. She does a crossword. She gets her homework done. She eats a snack, probably. She puts her jammies on by 9pm. And that's when the fun begins, because maybe she chats with friends on Facebook for awhile, before she starts to feel like she has to get things clean before she can go to bed. She organizes things, puts things away. She realizes she NEEDS to change her bedding. Immediately. She starts large loads of towels in the laundry, because Mormon girls live in packs and the towel racks can never stand up to all the towels those girls use, so people are always throwing the towel you have nicely hung over the bar of the shower onto the floor next to the toilet. She keeps her cell phone near, in case a boy should ever text, but she writes in her journal. She ventures toward the kitchen and thinks, who left this cereal bowl with half an inch of milk in it out on the counter? But she realizes that that half-inch of milk is partly solidified and so she retreats back to her own lair in pretty short order. She runs a lint roller over her fleece blankets, because there's never been a house of Mormon girls(probably this phenomenon exists amongst non-Mormon girls, but how would I know? I'm not prepared to make generalized statements on topics about which I have no data) where loose hair isn't a problem, and they always have hundreds of lint rollers around. I can see two from where I'm sitting now. They don't vacuum, because it's probably at least 11pm by now and at least one of their roommates is sure to be asleep.
Most of those questions may never be answered by Science. But fortunately, your Intrepid and Bold Investigator has, in a stellar example of admirable Take-One-For-the-Team Attitude, selflessly investigated the latter. You're welcome.
College is a fun, experimental time for most people. It involves making EXTREMELY poor choices, such as spending your parents Life Savings on pot and snowboarding, or having lots of promiscuous sex pretty much as a result of the fact that womanhood is basically synonymous with free alcohol. It involves going to parties where you come closer to death than you ever will until you're actually dying, either via alcohol poisoning or drunken stupidity ('Want to streak through that frozen field? No way that ice is gonna crack, bra!'). It involves spontaneous road trips with friends to alarmingly small towns with names like Grant's Pass, Oregon, or Hoquiam, Washington. Ever heard of them? Didn't think so. I hadn't either.
Problem is, except for that last, those behaviors are all sharply discouraged by Mormon church leaders, parents, and, indeed, many faithful LDS students themselves. But while most bored college kids are taking their clothes off with other bored college kids, or going to bars seeking to forget the state of their credit ratings, what are Mormon kids supposed to do, anyway? In groups, they eat cookies and play games like Scattergories and Scrabble. If they live on the edge, they have a bonfire or other gathering at which they drink Thomas Kemper root beer in an effort to trick their minds- the logic is that if a bottle looks like an alcohol bottle, it probably makes their experience more fun. (In my experience, usually the 'more fun' leads to somebody jumping straight through the main surface of the trampoline and then what's anybody supposed to do?)
While 'gentile' girls are 1. realizing he's not going to call, 2. getting skanked out and 3. going to bars where they will boost their self-esteem by having drinks purchased for them by pre-middle aged men who never left the town where they took a year and a half of college classes, the typical Mormon girl is home, either with her roommates or, if she's a little sadder, by herself. But while those other girls are about to have a crap-tacular Saturday, in which they waste the first six usable hours of the day sleeping (or possibly throwing up), the Mormon girl is preparing to actually enjoy her weekend, and more than that, she betters herself. She reads. She does a crossword. She gets her homework done. She eats a snack, probably. She puts her jammies on by 9pm. And that's when the fun begins, because maybe she chats with friends on Facebook for awhile, before she starts to feel like she has to get things clean before she can go to bed. She organizes things, puts things away. She realizes she NEEDS to change her bedding. Immediately. She starts large loads of towels in the laundry, because Mormon girls live in packs and the towel racks can never stand up to all the towels those girls use, so people are always throwing the towel you have nicely hung over the bar of the shower onto the floor next to the toilet. She keeps her cell phone near, in case a boy should ever text, but she writes in her journal. She ventures toward the kitchen and thinks, who left this cereal bowl with half an inch of milk in it out on the counter? But she realizes that that half-inch of milk is partly solidified and so she retreats back to her own lair in pretty short order. She runs a lint roller over her fleece blankets, because there's never been a house of Mormon girls(probably this phenomenon exists amongst non-Mormon girls, but how would I know? I'm not prepared to make generalized statements on topics about which I have no data) where loose hair isn't a problem, and they always have hundreds of lint rollers around. I can see two from where I'm sitting now. They don't vacuum, because it's probably at least 11pm by now and at least one of their roommates is sure to be asleep.
This is the time when an average Mormon girl might start to wonder why none of the boys of her acquaintance have texted her with regard to how desirable she is. Typical thoughts might be something like "Why am I not on a date right now? I have the best legs in the ward!" or possibly, "How does Sheila Epstein have a boyfriend and I don't?" This is when the evening takes its inevitable downward spiral, which culminates either in an unhealthy snack and a Nora Ephron movie, or a trip down Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus Lane. Finally, one of the boys she knows sends her a perfunctory text about how tired he is and how glad he finally is to be going home. She thinks to herself, "He's sharing his woes with me! It's because he cares!" She reads her scriptures, says her prayers, and goes to bed, not deliriously happy, but taking what she can get.
In a nutshell, when you're a Mormon girl on an off weekend, you get pretty creative. Maybe you even post a blog about all the nothing you did all night. But at least in the morning, you're not going to be pregnant, hung over, or freshly diseased (probably). And your bedroom is pretty tidy. You have new bedding on your bed. So there's that to look forward to. It's not actually so bad. This is your life. Embrace it.
In a nutshell, when you're a Mormon girl on an off weekend, you get pretty creative. Maybe you even post a blog about all the nothing you did all night. But at least in the morning, you're not going to be pregnant, hung over, or freshly diseased (probably). And your bedroom is pretty tidy. You have new bedding on your bed. So there's that to look forward to. It's not actually so bad. This is your life. Embrace it.
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