Lowanne E. Jones, Associate Professor Emerita & Former Head, Romance Languages and Literature, University of Cincinnati

(Names changed to protect the not-so-innocent) Janice Kane, my roommate during the second semester of my freshman year at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, liked to describe herself as “150 pounds of Fighting Blonde.”

She called herself the Jolly Green Giant, which she abbreviated to JGG on the notes she left for me on the desk in our room.

These notes most frequently asked me to open the window she used to sneak back into the dorm after hours. She was a self-described bad girl from Shaker Heights, Ohio. I was a much smaller, congenitally obedient good girl with mouse-brown hair, and she called me the Puny Pink Pigmy, the PPP.

The notes she left often read: “PPP: Let me in the East Window behind the bushes at 2:00 am???? Love, JGG.” Despite our obvious differences, Janice and I were close friends and admired in the other the qualities we ourselves lacked.

Cindy Segal, a sophisticated, super-rich girl from New York City, a self-described Jewish Princess, sported an enormous diamond engagement ring and wore very expensive, stunningly beautiful outfits, completely unsuitable to college life and inappropriate in sleepy Oxford.

Cindy lived with her glamorous New York City roommate in the beautiful suite with a private bath at the end of the hall. She spoke with a thick rather nasal Brooklyn accent I often found indecipherable. I was fascinated by her, a bit put-off, and more than a little terrified. From my small-town, midwestern perspective, she might as well have landed from Mars. We knew each other, and smiled, but never spoke.

As I had already spent several days over Christmas with Janice, the JGG, in Cleveland, she had agreed to come home with me to Bowling Green, Ohio, for the Easter vacation. On the night before vacation, the JGG lurched into our room, more than little drunk, ignored her bed piled two feet high with her own dirty clothes, dropped onto my perfectly made bunk, threw up, and passed out. Naturally, I, the PPP, burst into tears.

To my surprise and immense relief, it was the big city girl, the exotic and alien Cindy Segal, who came to my rescue, rolled the JGG off my bed onto the floor, snatched up the filthy bedclothes, stuffed them in the laundry, and offered me her absent room-mate’s impeccable bed. Ever since that gruesome night, I seek out, acknowledge, and thank the Cindy Segals of the world. We all know who they are.