Collegiate Times

For your first or second year living in the dorm rooms, there are certain items and living organisms that are better left back home. Think of this advice as a life-insurance policy to ensure your roommate won?t be hiring a professional hitman two months into your co-habitation.

From an old science experiment display board on different brands of carpet cleaner and their effects on human bodily fluids to the ?Charlie?s Angels? five foot cut-out you stole from Blockbuster, certain items are better left at home. Here are just a few items to leave with the parental units:

An only child mentality: drop the spoiled ?it?s my room; you just live in it? idealism you may have developed back home. Nothing is worse than having a roommate with the apparent lack of knowledge that someone else is living in this 10-foot cubicle of a residence. Someone who plays ?I Kissed A Drunk Girl? by Something Corporate on repeat every Saturday morning or has the habit of falling asleep to infomercials about salad cutlery on Tuesday nights is not the type of roommate you want to be.

Your rodent pet: Although you may have purchased your hamster or rat back home as a gallant service to the community, this four-legged vat of disease is not designed for a dorm room or the bottom of the drawer you?d be forced to hide him in. ?The only thing a rodent would be good for would be to torment my roommate,? said Joseph Littell, an incoming freshman at Virginia Tech. Clearly, Littell understands the sociological ramifications of hosting an illegitimate experiment on hamster feces and the human response in the dorm rooms ? dorms get dirty enough as it is.

Every season of ?The X-Files? on DVD: I, for one, experienced this horror my first year. As much as I enjoy a little science fiction every now and then, every time that eerie foreboding whistle began to escape from the TV, I knew it was a good time to go suppress my feelings in the extra cream cheese icing atop my Cinnabon for an hour or two.

Each night I made up my mind that I would leave the room just until Scully decided she believed in the paranormal or when Mulder chose to believe in an omnipotent life-force. But alas ? based on the probability of this belief paradox ever getting resolved by either character, your roommate almost certainly will never stop playing re-runs of ?The X-Files? so long as you wish this plot conflict to cease. ??The X-Files are an acquired taste, so I could see how a roommate might not equally adore the show,? said Kaitlyn Hines, a rising sophomore engineering student at Virginia Tech and ?X-Files? fan. Even if it?s not ?The X-Files,? keep in mind that your roommate might not share your love for a television series or music group. Learn to compromise.

A boyfriend or girlfriend: As much as your overprotective manic boyfriend or girlfriend may want to come visit you at Tech ? save this terror-stricken visit for when you go home. Nothing is quite as awkward as being the ?other? roommate in this situation, forced to leave the room for hours at a time ? not necessarily because they are trying to give some private time ? but because they just cannot bear to hear ?I know you and that guy on the third floor must be hooking up! And who is Jimmy ? I saw him write on your Facebook wall?? one more time. Karrina Wallace, a rising sophomore university studies major, had a similar experience with her roommate. ?I didn?t mind an extra person being in the room, but he was like our third roommate, and they would just argue the whole time,? said Wallace.

Incessant ranting and endless cuddling are equally annoying when you can see every movement of the mattress from your panoramic bottom-bunk view.

Your love of the color black: as much as this color looks great smeared across your face and all over your walls back home ? your roommate may not be so much a fan of this black-hole void of life palette you may choose to decorate with. Wall space is very limited and the best thing to do is just split the room in half. Otherwise, you may be waking up every morning to the ever so-inspiring feeling of wanting to die. But then again, walls covered in pink may have the same effect. Remember that decorating is a two-person effort.

With all of these items in mind, I?m sure it will not be too hard for all you newcomers and returning students to choose what not to bring to your dorm room when sharing it with another person. Just remember: Mulder and Scully are not loved by all, color is a personal thing and fur is only good if it?s on a jacket.