College Conspiracy lives on...

(This ones for you Mineo)

We have an old conspiracy going with my college friends. And it reared it’s head again this week. Let’s call the culprit “Mineo”.

There are 9 of us Roanoke girls who for lack of better word, call ourselves the JUNIORS. This was a term someone used a while back and it stuck. In any case, here’s how it all started.

Anyone who has ever been to Roanoke College in podunk Salem, VA knows about Mac-n-Bobs. It’s one of very few restaurants/bars in town which caters to the college students. We LIVED there in college. If mac-n-bobs walls could talk, we’d all be in trouble. Among the famous electric lemonades, chicken phillies and bobs wings, they had these calzones like none other. If you haven’t had one at Bobs before, I think you’re missing a life experience. Anyway, it was a favorite and they were so big, you could never eat the whole thing in one sitting. One of the hundred times that I had a calzone for a meal there (who knows, could have been breakfast, lunch or dinner), I brought the leftovers home and put them in our dorm room refrigerator. By the way, that frig is still serving today – if THAT thing could talk, I would really be in trouble. Suffice to say that one late night or early morning I came back to my room so psyched to eat the leftover calzone to curb the late night munchies (which I’m sure had nothing to do with me being shnockered out of my gourd). IT WAS GONE! We investigated very thoroughly and nobody fessed up.

Now, I lived in my sorority quad with all 8 of my JUNIORS; so there was no question that one of “US” had eaten the calzone. Nobody owned up to it. Not even by the time we graduated did anyone fess up. We knew it was someone in our living area – and one of our best friends at that! But nobody had the guts to admit it. It was a running joke between us for years. It wasn’t until many years later, at one of our weddings, that the calzone thief revealed herself. AH, what a relief it was! And would you know, it was the one we least suspected – she must have had a weak moment and caved to the late night munchies. We still razz her to this day – she’ll never live it down. Right Mineo?

So, today another mystery surfaced. A few years ago, I started a journal for our crew of 9 – I got a blank book, put a list of our addresses in the front and started in around via mail (snail mail, that is). The object is to keep mailing it around to each other, to the person below you on the list, while each person updates on their latest news. At the rate it goes (the more kids that are born, the slower it gets), each of us usually get it once during the year, if that. It’s so much fun to receive in the mail – we get to read back to the last time we wrote and see what everyone has been up to. We include pictures and funny stories too so it’s a hoot to get. We’ve all been through lots of ups and downs and it’s a precious memory of our ever changing lives. Even though we are spread across the nation, it keeps us together in spirit.

I realized today that I haven’t seen it in quite a while. I immediately emailed everyone to see if anyone had it. My first thought was that it was lost in the mail. One of our girls is in Australia so I worried that it got lost in the ocean somewhere. At first, nobody knew where it was. I started to panic, thinking it was gone. A few others started to worry too, franticly trying to remember when they last had it. Nobody wanted it to be lost. When low and behold, the sneaky CALZONE THIEF STRUCK AGAIN!

Her words exactly “oh my god....this is soooo funny. I HAVE IT!!! when i read the e-mails i remembered that i got it right before we left for vacation. i put it in my desk and forgot all about it. so, when i read the e-mail i thought about quickly dropping it in the mail and calling it a day....the calzone thief returns!!!!

Phew, at least we know it’s not lost, right Mineo? You have a good excuse my friend – 3 kids, a crazy ass dog named Shane and summer vacation; you’re off the hook. But you still owe me a Calzone! On goes the journal, to it’s next stop…