The hook and the
catch. Lothrop in and of its self, its absolute magnificence, its glory and
prestige. Or perhaps Lothrop Hall and it’s disgusting quarters its lack of
“essentials” its general ugly, boxy quarter century appearance. Is it remarkable
how two people will view an item from a completely arbitrary vantage? To me
Lothrop was the pinnacle of a high-rise luxury apartment, but to my general
confusion most around me saw it as a crappy, dank flop house looking entity
terrorizing the general aesthetics of our Oakland campus. However, what puzzled
me the most actually was the amount of wealth to which people were accustomed.
Students struggling against moving carts with belly’s full regurgitating large flat screen
T.V.s. Armloads shouting, boasting even the absolute latest in technology. Clothing, literally, racks on racks on racks (Y.C. what you got?) Honestly I wasn't hurt or upset or
mad or jealous or whatever, just dumbfounded I caught myself staring at a few fellows
in utter shock. I had seen this lifestyle before in like Ikea catalogues but to
see it in real life was incredible.
I never noticed how
quote-un-quote “little” I had until people who stopped by my room would be like
“Yo where’s all your stuff? Your room is like empty bro.” WHAT THE? I brought with
my person to this city two WHOLE suitcases, a carry-on, and a backpack that’s a
lot of stuff! Everything I had of value was crammed into these bags and I was
proud of how much it was. Subhan ALLAH. Perfect paradigms of a country that
vaunts equality. Nonetheless, we bring in the refrain this IS after all the
propagation of a Façade. I quickly came up with the most believable excuse
“Well you know coming on a plane can’t really bring too much with you” I assume
it worked because people would shrug and be like “Oh yeah you’re right”.
Catastrophe averted. His blending in with the upper echelons is over 9000!
All the basics amenities that the average
American grows up with were now available to me!! Lighting for example. The
circuitry in my house is very old so a lot of the lighting fixtures don’t work
combined with the fact that we were plainly too poor to afford new light bulbs;
this fact is almost comical in retrospect. What would happen is we would eat
dinner and then take that light bulb and put it in my mom’s room immediately following
and then when I would get ready to take a shower I would take it and put it in
the bathroom, and then if my sister wanted to do some bed time reading we would
take it and put it in her lamp. End day, repeat cycle. So because of having no
light in my room I had gotten used to finishing, cramming, as it were, all of
my “studying” and various light requiring activities into the daylight hours.
However with the Pretty Lights installed in my condo (hey to me it’s a condo) my
study time was exponentially Increased!!! Showers? Hah grrreaaat! I wouldn’t
really call my shower back in Stone Mountain a shower Masha ALLAH, it’s more of
a glorified water faucet. It didn’t really perform its namesake, it more or
less dribbled scalding hot to lukewarm to freezy water (that is to say 0-60 in
4 mins flat!) down your front and then randomly sputtered off, calling it a
day. But now I could take my time and not worry about the hot water running out
for my sister’s bath. Dopeaf.
People often
complained about the lack of air-conditioning in Lothrop. I was like yo I’m
from the south and never had air-conditioning what’s really good? This is
simply what I’m used to so while people were struggling to not melt I was
playing it cool. (ßthankyou)
BUT, possibly the most life changing FACT I ever heard, still to this day even,
was that according to Pennsylvania Law, schools are only required to provide
heat in the winter not air in the summer.
Now I’d like to take this time to
clear up a misconception about the territory that lies below the Mason-Dixon
Line formally known as The American South (which WILL rise again). It’s not
always hot. It gets hot in the summer and spring but in late fall and winter it
is blistering cold! On top of the fact that the houses in Stone Mountain are
designed to keep cool air in and hot air out. So energy rates in the South are
through the roof. This being said my mom could only afford to turn the heat on
for an hour a day, 30 mins in the morning 30 mins at night. Sometimes though at
night she would fall asleep and the heat would stay on by accident those were
the best nights w’ALLAHi, but then again that would only mean we had to cut out
heat somewhere else in the week. So yeah, I have countless memories of my
sister and I consolidating our body heat and blankets into one big inferno in
the middle of my bed on the rougher nights. So when winter hit I got the most
out of that poor ol’ radiator in my room keeping it on full blast all the time.
Of course at the “top of the hole sit a privileged few” who would come into my
room and complain about the heat. But as we all know by now, this is the
propagation of a façade. My reply “I’m from the South I get cold easily.”
I keep tellin ya’ll
We’re all gonna make it brahs,
-Zyzz Yusuf
And like a fat kid in dodge ball, I’m out.
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