#i’m a bit iffy on the outer layer but i’ve been warming up to it

[meowsielee]

my first doll custom!!!! really i love asha so much and i wanted to have a visual representation of my redesign for my au and im so so obsessed with her 🥰🥰

[comicreliefmorlock]

TELL US THE BEAUTIFUL STORY OF HOW YOU MET! WITH THE SOCKS!

@tlbodine​ didn’t actually realize how ridiculous this whole thing was until about… 11 years later. Which is why she is so precious. {ilu snarky INTJ

College was alternately a gloriously fun time for me and literal Hell on earth. Between 18+ hours of classes, working 30+ hours a week and dealing with my first ex’s family, I had no patience left over for dealing with day-to-day annoyances.

Fortunately for me, my English classes were with professors that were, by and large, awesome and entertaining. So escaping TO class was something of a relief most of the time. I was not a social butterfly in college–due to the abusive relationship I was in, I didn’t have the option of really trying to make friends. I’d had one really good friend my freshman/sophmore years, but that blew up due to said first ex.

So as far as college being “the social experience,” I knew I was missing out but oh well.

Cue spring semester, 2005.

New Mexico weather is usually fairly predictable: hot and dry. In the summer, you get monsoon season. In the winter, all of the native New Mexico folk run around wrapped in seventeen layers and diving into buildings with desperate screams. Students from more northerly climes adjust their flip-flops and just kind of stare after the natives, thoroughly baffled.

March to April is usually warm-creeping-up-on-hot and windy. Dry. Usually dusty.

That particular spring, however, we had some freak rain. And when I say freak rain, I don’t mean a sprinkle here and there, or a shower once in a while. I mean torrential downpours and fucking hAIL.

My class with Dr. Bhattacharya was an afternoon class. I usually walked my first ex to his class, went straight to the library and waited there until it was time for MY class. Said library was a good ten minute walk from the building where my class was held, but nothing too strenuous, even for an out of shape nerd.

That particular afternoon, the freak rain showed up and proceeded to pummel the desert into submission, no safeword acknowledged.

It was TEARING down, and quickly enough that the gutters were full, the sidewalks were overrun and the campus streets were under about a half inch of water. I, standing in the Zuhl Library doorway and staring out, was not pleased about having to go through THAT to reach class.

And anyone thinking I should’ve had an umbrella or some sort of outer covering available clearly missed the part where this was SPRINGTIME IN SOUTHERN NEW MEXICO. Any layer beyond a bra and t-shirt would’ve resulted in my dehydrated corpse being dragged off the sidewalk by campus security.

Missing Dr. Bhattacharya’s class was non-negotiable. My grades were always a little iffy in college due to aforementioned schedule; I couldn’t afford to miss class, possibly miss important information and let my grades slip. I was on a scholarship, after all.

I tried my best. I stuffed my backpack under my shirt as best I could and ran for it.

I did mention “out of shape nerd” didn’t I?

Running did not last long. It possibly lasted a few yards further than I thought I could go, but by that time, I was already completely soaked. There was no “dry ground” to be had and I’d already slipped and fallen once on the wet as fuck sidewalk. Fleeing the rain was futile. I resigned myself to walking. Very resentfully. 

My mood was not improved when the rain decided to mix it up a little and fling hail down to compete with the big fat icy raindrops that were beating me half to death. 

Although I managed to cut my usual walk time by about three oh so significant minutes, it was at the cost of any scrap of personal comfort I might’ve had earlier in the day. My shoes–cheap, old sneakers with absolutely no ability to repel water–were soaked through. My socks were icy hands of death, clutching my numb feet. My jeans had gained twenty pounds and went from faded denim to navy from the knees down. Although I’d lucked out by not wearing a white t-shirt that day, it was still soaked through and clinging. 

The less said about my hair the better. 

And, of course, the professor was late.

Dispirited, shivering and thoroughly perturbed, I slid down the wall to flop onto the floor outside of the classroom. I’ve never been particularly worried about public opinion on my best days. This was not one of my best days. 

Faced with sitting through 55 minutes of class while covered in soaking fabric was not acceptable. I stripped off my sneakers, poured the water out of them and peeled off my socks and tried wringing them out. Rolled my jeans up above my knees in an attempt to reduce the sheer area of wet cloth that was touching my lily-white hide. 

Now at what point the thought “maybe I could warm these socks up a little” crossed my mind, I’m not sure. But I had a lighter (even in my pre-smoker days) and I figured maybe I could make those socks less of a punitive measure if I tried toasting them a little. 

A Bic lighter is not designed to fire-dry soaking wet socks. Just FYI. 

I had noticed @tlbodine in my class, but she was intimidatingly brilliant and I’m an introvert. Making overt gestures to people in hopes of finding a friend was not in my playbook. So when a Zippo slid across the hall to me, I was very surprised to see that she’d been the one to send it over. 

She looked thoroughly bemused, watching me flip the lighter open, spark it and wave the flame under one sock at a time. All Wuffie asked was “Aren’t you worried they’ll catch fire?”

To which I brilliantly replied “Wet cotton doesn’t burn.”

None of us clustered in the hall had apparently thought to try the classroom door, but one other student did and we all filed in. Me with my backpack over one shoulder, wet socks and a Zippo in one hand, wet shoes in the other. 

To my whimpering feet, the flat industrial carpet felt like a loving caress. It was dry and room temperature. Bliss. 

It was while we were all eyeing the clock and secretly hoping Dr. Bhattacharya wouldn’t show up for fifteen minutes–which was the accepted “class is canceled, book it” time–that I realized the carpet was absorbent. 

Maybe I could dry my socks a little more. 

I was still thoroughly and completely exasperated with the entire day. This day was a total fail and not only was my truck–with an emergency set of flip-flops and a sweater–all the way across campus, but I had to take my first ex to his house before I could get to mine in order to get dry clothing. 

So I started beating my socks against the floor. 

Again–no fucks given about public opinion. I was taking out all of my peevish indignation on that floor and those socks. And it started to be fun. That’s when I threw my socks against the wall and they stuck. 

I, wholly focused on the mollifying sock-beating, didn’t realize that our professor had arrived and was standing in the door. Dr. Bhattacharya was a woman not easily fazed, but apparently she’d never been faced with a student bludgeoning a wall with a wet sock before. 

She started to walk across the room to the front table, but paused every time I smacked the sock against the wall or the floor. 

Step. 

THWACK!

Pause.

Step.

THWACK!

Pause. 

Step. 

THWACK!

It took her a good minute and a half to walk about twenty feet. 

By that time, the exercise had warmed me up a bit and I felt my socks had been duly chastised for their betrayal. I sat down, draped my socks over the (empty, surprise surprise) desk next to me and remembered to reach back to pass the Zippo to Wuffie, who had always sat one row back and one desk over from me. 

After class, she fell into step with me as we were walking out of the building, and twelve years later, she can’t get rid of me. 

Needless to say, it wasn’t until a year or so ago that Wuffie realized just how weird it was that her reaction to seeing this deranged idiot flailing a wall with wet socks was to (self-reported) think “I’ve gotta be friends with her.”

The moral of the story is dry your wet socks by beating them against a public wall. You might meet your best friend that way.