Chocolate sampler from "Chocolate for a Teen’s Heart"

“Hoof-In-Mouth” Disease
Kimberly Birkland

Two years ago in Los Angeles I met my college roommate for the first time. There she was standing at the curb near our dorm: tall, slender, long dark hair, looking absolutely perfect. And there I was: sweating in the unfamiliar heat, standing next to my mother with her tear-drenched face, an array of unorganized luggage at my feet. My roommate was from Southern California, but she looked like she’d just stepped out of an Amazon forest with her exotic good looks, and I could barely peel my sticky, flattened hair off of the side of my face.

As we sat in our room and looked through her modeling portfolio, my pictures from back home of my family and friends began to wane in importance, taking on a rather dull existence on the edge of my desk. I looked at pictures of her acting and theater performances, and my dreams of being a screenwriter did not seem so fantastic anymore since I had nothing to show for them.

My roommate told me she had a boyfriend in town and that she’d be spending evenings at his house, but would check in with me during the day to say hi and do some studying. He had lots of money and took her to the finest restaurants and nightclubs in LA. My nights were filled with lounging around with girls in the dorm, spending time on the Internet; and if I was lucky, watching a good movie. Her stories of meeting celebrities in VIP rooms and being whirled around in a world of fine food and beautiful people produced in me a subconscious yearning for her life.

Sometimes we’d drive around in her brand-new, maroon Jetta since I didn’t have a car. During these times together, I couldn’t help but feel that she was somehow on this higher plane, and I kept forgetting that she was my age.

She drove me to a dentist appointment one day, and she looked so confident. Her hair blew in the breeze as she held her arm out the window and put her pencil-thin leg up on the seat as she careened around the streets with familiarity. She blew me a kiss good-bye after dropping me off, reminding me of a famous movie star.

Many times I’d find five of her friends laughing and talking when I’d come into our room. I would leave or sit at the computer and work online. She tried to incorporate me into conversations, but they were “drama people” I thought, and I didn’t understand them.

Over the weeks, her “niceness” was just too much for me. Near as I could tell, she knew everyone on campus, and they all loved her. Her amount of greatness seemed to equal the measure of my loneliness and anxiety about being in this foreign land of Los Angeles. Her boyfriend was also too perfect. He had the good looks of an actor and treated her really well. He was in love with her, and I was green with envy.

On a particularly hot, sweaty day in mid-September, I had just flunked the first test of my entire life and received a “C” on a paper I’d spent the whole night before writing and editing. I was in the worst mood ever and grateful for some time alone in our room. When the phone rang, I debated whether to answer it since it was usually for her. I paused for a second then got it in case I’d won the lottery, or it was Leonardo di Caprio finally responding to the fan mail I’d sent him.

My best friend from home was calling. What a relief! Finally to hear a familiar voice. I missed her so much, and we immediately drowned in the comfort of each other’s woes. I shared with her my horrible day and how I’d barely made any friends. As I went on and on, my situation seemed to get more pathetic, and I looked over at my roommate’s pictures of all of her friends, and began to get even more envious of her. My life seemed to really be in the depths of doom while my roommate had everything going her way.

I began to talk about her. I don’t know if it was to make me feel better, or just because I was so jealous; but I went on a whole tirade about how I couldn’t stand my roommate. I told my friend that my roommate was stupid, phony and fake, and that she couldn’t even act (I had never actually seen her act). Nothing could stop me, and it seemed like I just kept on reeling off terrible nonsensical things about her and her boyfriend.

Suddenly I was startled by a rustling sound in the upper bunk. To my horror, I turned and saw my roommate coming down from her bed. I dropped the phone and began to gasp knowing that she’d heard my every negative word. Her face had a look of dark despair from the hurt I’d inflicted. My heart sank. I had never felt so guilty, horrible, and disgusting in my entire life. She tearfully whispered, “I have to go to class,” and ran out of the room. She had obviously been napping up in her bed, and I hadn’t seen or noticed her thin body up against the wall.

I spent the whole day crying and drowning in my own misery and guilt. I couldn’t believe how badly I’d put my foot in my mouth! There was nothing I could say or do to make her listen to me after that day. I wrote her a five-page letter and put it in her desk, knowing that she’d probably never read it. I immediately volunteered to move out and quickly made myself invisible to her and her friends. I became reclusive, hanging out with only one other person.

Since then, my old roommate and I have never talked and have never so much as exchanged glances. If we see each other coming across campus, we usually just both walk in opposite directions.

Now, as I sit here in my Level One acting class nearly two years later trying to learn the basic tenets of the skill, I reflect back and ask myself, Who was I actually talking about on the phone that fateful day -- her or me? I’ve discovered the hard way that when I see things in others I don’t like or find fault with, they are only reflections of the negative things I don’t like about myself.

When I think of this experience now, the word karma comes to mind -- the law of cause and effect from our actions in a lifetime that produce favorable or unfavorable results in the future. If it’s remotely possible that we have more than one life, I think I’ve burned off one hundred years of negative karma in working through this one!

I’m not the same person I was two years ago. What I do now is say only good things about other people. It always puts them in a better light, and it gives me peace of mind -- something I missed dearly during the last couple of years while recovering from “hoof-in-mouth” disease.