After Vird left my room to move with with another roommate who was a frat brother, I had the room to myself for a couple of weeks. Then, the RA brought in Skad. I was hoping I'd have a private room for the remainder of the semester, but that just didn't work out.
Skad was a freshman. He was Hispanic and overweight. He came from Tularosa, NM, a small town about 15 miles north of Alamogordo. We did not have anything in common. After he first moved in, we didn't say a word to each other for a few weeks. I didn't dislike him, but we literally had nothing to talk about.
He was on the work-study program. He worked in the cafeteria. He had to get up really early in the morning to do the breakfast shift. I was surprised to come eat and find out that he was one of the guys working the line. He had actually served me many times before, but I rarely paid attention to the cafeteria workers.
One thing I found odd about Skad was that he went home EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND! I couldn't stand driving 2 1/2 hours to get home twice a semester. I don't know how he could put up with a 4 1/2 hour drive, but I guess he went there with some of his friends. That would have made the drive a lot more bearable. The week of Thanksgiving, he didn't even bother to come back to school for the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday classes. It was nice to have that whole week all to myself.
My friend Kird returned to ENMU to try to catch up with his ex-girlfriend. While he was trying to track her down, he stayed in the room with me and Skad. Skad never said anything about Kird spending the night there, not even when an administrator called our room at 11pm to try to get a hold of Kird. After Kird had left, Skad told me a bunch of stuff that was going on with Kird. I told him about all the stuff that I knew about with Kird. It was the first actual conversation we had since he moved in.
Skad moved in with another roommate the next semester and I had to room all to myself. I would see him from time to time, especially during breakfast. One thing that I noticed that had changed about him was that he no longer went home every single weekend. I guess he found more interesting things to do at school rather than return home all the time.
I never saw Skad again after I graduated. I didn't even think of him very often. As usual, I looked him up in preparation for this blog. According to his mother's obituary, he had gotten married and probably had a few kids.
The obituary also indicated that he was still living in Tularosa. I guess he never really got over being homesick.
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