I'm glad I was never 18

I wrote earlier this year about an infestation of sketchy people at Pirate House. One may argue that Pirate House has a continuous infestation of sketchy people (for example: Micah, Steve and myself), but I maintain that the fact that we didn't know any of them--nor did anyone else--qualified them as sketchy even by our standards.

Well, I'm now facing similar difficulties at Tucker's house.

Along with Ketan, Brandi and me--all Metta interns--a high school graduate named Isabelle has been living in Tucker's large, beautiful house. Isabelle is generally quiet, polite, and out of sight--all things I would consider to be good qualities in a housemate. This is mitigated by her tendancy to leave dishes lying around and occasional streaks of the kind of elitism that could only come from going to some fancy prep school.

With Tucker on vacation for a few weeks, we have the house to ourselves. Or we did, until Isabelle, freshly done with her internship but still staying in Berkeley, began bringing a string of friends to hang around the house. They enhance the dish issue, and in their most famous exploit left a huge mess of pineapple in the kitchen, which Brandi had to sweep off the floor. I mentioned this to them, and they responded by spelling "we're sorry" in pineapple chunks outside my cottage. They even cleaned it up later, sealing it as a truly cute gesture (though Brandi is the one that needed the apology). Then they left some more dishes lying around, which Brandi cleaned up.

Now, if you've ever lived with me, you might be saying, "Whoa, Nick. Are you complaining about dishes?" Fair enough. But I've been very good this summer, and it has been getting on my nerves. But that's just the grating inconvenience.

My personal issues are with the friends' attitude and demeanor. They are loud, crude, pretentious, and I'm pretty sure they drank some of Mark's beer. I heard them talking about Princeton, of which I'm glad, because I came to a realization.

I had just been eyeing a PhD in Liberal Studies at Georgetown University. Now, Georgetown isn't Ivy League, but it's still a very good school, with what I imagine is a similar atmosphere (after all, Bill Clinton went there). But you know what? If these are the kind of kids being funneled into these schools, I want none of it.