Miss Matthews

Recently one of my husband's friends moved to Wilmington, DE. That in itself is not funny, because according to him Delaware is the "black hole" of connections and he knows no one there.

But what is funny is that I used to be from Wilmington, DE. That was when I was going by the name of Marilyn Matthews. A sprightly young 21 year old from the second smallest state in the country.

That was the alias I chose for my fake ID when I was in high school. Clever, I know! And I kept it until one fateful day, my sophomore year of college. A bunch of my older sorority sisters had a big party and most of the people there drinking were not of legal age. Yes that is illegal. But nothing really bad was happening...until the undercover cops showed up.

I was trying to be inclusive when I saw the one lonely non-white person wandering around. That should have been a huge, on-fire, burning red flag, because the Greek scene at UNC isn't exactly diverse. But no. My roommate and I walked right up to him and tried to engage him so that he wouldn't be alone.

Brace yourself here, because this is going to shock you: He was not the lonely over-sized college kid that my naive 19 year old eyes initially saw. He was a 30-something, African-American, A.L.E. agent. And he was about to eff our shit up.

I am not exaggerating when I say that approximately 40 people got drinking tickets that night. Seriously, so many people got tickets that they ended up dropping them all because apparently the way in which the agents dolled them out (trespassing without probably cause, or something like that) was not justified.

The lawyer that represented me was actually one of the attorneys in the Duke Lacrosse lawsuit. Apparently he specialized in cases of Rape, Murder, and drunk sorority girls actin' a fool. He actually just did it because he was a friend of my dad's. And he let me pay in him in chocolates. (He has since passed away, sadly).

One girl even got her foot run over during the mayhem/teenagers fleeing the scene, and the "agents" didn't even try to help her. How's that for enforcement?

Back to the main character here: Marilyn Matthews. Well apparently Marilyn Matthews is a bitch when she gets drunk. Because she did NOT like getting a ticket. And she was NOT afraid to tell the police officer that. Especially when said officer confiscated not only my fake ID, but my GD scuba diving license.

In her defense it is because I claimed that was the only ID I had. In my defense, DUH, I didn't want to give up my fake ID.

So there I was. Back to being a future-sober sophomore that couldn't even drown my sorrows with an underwater scuba excursion if I wanted to.

Naturally I turned to food. Easy Mac to be exact. I was drunk, I was pissed, and I was in the mood for some 3 minute macaroni. I placed my 20 cent meal in my 40 cent plastic bowl and pressed play on the microwave. When I took the bowl out 2 minutes later to add the cheese powder to the mix, damned if I didn't spill that hot bowl of hard noodles right through my Michael Starrs shirt.

Not only was that the last time I could wear a One-Size-Fits-All article of clothing. It was also the last time I could say that I did not have a 3rd-degree burn caused my macaroni and cheese.

The rest of the night was filled with 3 drunk girls trying to solve the riddle of how to stop my flesh from disappearing. Tried and failed attempts included cold rags, warm rags, slices of cheese, and blowing.

None of that worked, but it sure is nice to know that your roomies will be there for you when a terrible science experiment drunk-eating episode goes wrong.

I still have a scar now. But let me tell you something. When you burn the shit out of your stomach with a processed cheese treat, after getting a drinking ticket and mouthing off to a cop, you don't get a lot of sympathy from your parents or the local student health caretaker.

RIP Marilyn Matthews.

* I haven't touched a bowl of Easy Mac since.