Black Men and the Power of Noodle Roni

Remember when Pasta Roni was called Noodle Roni?  Yes, it was before the Pasta Revolution of 1996, which changed everything.  "Noodle", while fun to say, is considered low class.  But back when I was a freshman at The University of Dirty Hippies, "noodle" was perfectly acceptable.

As a freshman, I stuck to a steady vegetarian diet of crap.  No meat because meat is murder.  But piles and piles of ramen, grilled cheese sandwiches, kettle chips, white rice with butter and cheese and other nutritionally vapid food.  I got so sick of ramen that one day, while preparing yet another bowl, I started crying and screaming about how I didn't think I could handle anymore ramen.  To this day, when I smell it, I get nauseous.

Noodle Roni, however, was a goddamn treat.  If we had the money to buy milk, we could enjoy a creamy bowl of saucy noodles with our buttery grilled cheese.  Because that's a healthy combination.  What did we know?  We were 18 and the "Carbs will kill you" thing was still years off.  Plus, when you're high, you're not thinking that you should probably eat a low-carb, low-fat, sugar-free yogurt.

After arriving at UDH (and after being issued my rape whistle), I attended the first meeting of the Black Learners Association for Quality Unifying Education, or, BLAQUE.  This is where I learned that dirty hippies and black folks don't mix.  There were 4 people there.  Including me.  I never went to another meeting and I saw so few black people on campus, it was just like being in Minnesota.  But I'm mixed, which means I can hang with the whites too.  So it was all good. (Don't worry, this is all going somewhere.)

I had this friend--we'll call her Donna.  I don't feel right using her real name because I am no longer in contact with her.  So Donna it is.  Donna was the most peculiar person I have ever met.  She was tall--like 6 feet tall--and painfully skinny with paper-thin, pale, sensitive skin.  Her hair was jet black and her eyes were a brilliant green.  She moved like a cat--very quiet and graceful.  Donna introduced me to Sebadoh and undiagnosed mental illness.  Here's a good way to sum up Donna: if you were tripping on acid, you'd totally want to be at Donna's house.

The dangerous part about the UDH was that people who did drugs thought everyone wanted to do drugs with them.  I was definitely a pot smoker but I stayed far away from anything else at the time, especially hallucinogenics.  The idea of seeing shit that wasn't there or my friend's face suddenly melting off her skull while I was talking to her did not appeal to me at all.  Friends would always say, "It's like opening another dimension in your mind.  You should totally try it."  No thanks, I'd say.  And I stuck to my guns.  Until one faithful night.

A friend of mine--we'll call him Ted--made a batch of pot brownies.  Brownies?  Delicious.  Pot?  Absolutely.  Thus, I cut myself a big old piece and scarfed it down.  A short while later, I started to feel...weird.  One entire wall in my bedroom was covered with rave flyers from all the raves I did and didn't go to from 1992-1994.  They sort of started...coming at me...especially the Halloween themed flyer, which was making me...uneasy.  So I went to Ted's room.
"Hey Ted?"
"Yeah?"
"What did you put in those pot brownies?"
"Pot."
"Ok.  Anything else?"
"No.  Well...I mean, there are mushrooms in there too."

Great, thanks Ted.  I would have freaked out but Stephanie, my faithful sidekick was there and when I looked at her, she grinned and said, "Let's go to Donna's house."

Donna lived in a house in the woods.  It wasn't a random house in the woods, although that would make the story much better, wouldn't it?  The University of Dirty Hippies offered several different types of housing.  Steph and I lived in an apartment.  Donna lived in a Mod, which was short for Modular Housing.  The legend was, there was a failed attempt to make modular housing a thing in San Fransisco.  When it didn't work, UDH bought up all the short, sound structures and used them as student housing.  That's where Donna lived.

Stephanie and I arrived at Donna's house and immediately told her we'd accidentally eaten mushrooms.  Donna grinned, her heavy eyelids half covering her green eyes.  "Cool", she said softly.  "Come on in."

I sat in a chair at Donna's kitchen table, wringing my hands.  I was not good at drugs.  When I was 12, I read a Sweet Valley High book about a girl who did one line of coke and immediately died.  It scared the shit out of me.  I was convinced that I would also die, suddenly and without warning, if I did anything harder than marijuana.  Kudos, Francine Pascal.

Donna turned on the television.  I stared at it but I couldn't tell you what was on it.  Steph asked if I was ok.  I said yes but it felt like a bunch of little tiny hands were pushing on me.

"Go to the bathroom", Donna said lightly.  "It's, like, a whole other world in there."
Steph and I took her advice and went into the bathroom.  I don't know what fascinated us but we were in there for a good 20 minutes.  When we came out, I had a renewed sense of calm about the mushrooms.  It was fun.  My whole body was tingly and I could hear everything.  There was a hum of electricity that ran through me and it wasn't scary; it was exhilarating.

"You guys want some Noodle Roni?"
It was a quietly asked question; just an afterthought, like, "Gee, maybe they're hungry."
Steph and I both reared up and said, "YES" with such ferocity that we might have been responsible for a tsunami that occurred some 3,000 miles away several days later.

Donna started making the Noodle Roni.  I don't remember what flavor it was but  it smelled like all Noodle Roni smells: creamy, buttery and carb-y.

"Hey", Donna said, lazily.  "I dare you guys to go outside and scream 'whoever wants Noodle Roni, come to Mod 12.'"

Stephanie raced for the door, threw it open and screamed at the top of her lungs:

"WHOEVER WANTS NOODLE RONI, COME TO MOD 12!!!!!!!"

Then she came back inside and we laughed like it was the funniest goddamn thing that had ever happened anywhere in the world.

30 seconds after she did that, there was a furious pounding on the door.  We all froze, our eyes wide with surprise.  Our Noodle Roni friends had arrived.

Donna opened the door.  Standing outside was a group of black men.  I don't remember how many; could have been 3 or 27.  As soon as she opened the door, one of them said, "Noodle Roni?!"

Now, had I not been on mushrooms, this would have been strange.  Like I said, there were FOUR black people TOTAL at UDH.  Where this group of black men came from is a total mystery.  But because I was in an altered state, this was some spooky, spooky shit.  I collapsed on the floor laughing, gasping for air.  Donna politely explained that we only had one box of Noodle Roni.  That displeased them; they grumbled about "people yelling they have Noodle Roni when they don't have Noodle Roni."  After they left, I went and stood on the front porch, looking for any sign of them.  Nothing.  I never saw them again, ever.  They were like unicorns.  Hungry, black unicorns.

We ate our Noodle Roni and some other stuff happened but nothing as intense as the Noodle Roni incident.  It's a story I try to tell people but I can never fully convey the absolute bizarreness of that moment.  Maybe it didn't really happen.

Later, Donna became very addicted to meth and then heroin, which effectively ended our friendship.  The last time I went to Donna's house, it was like an episode of Hoarders.  I cleaned her kitchen and left and we never spoke again.  I often wondered what happened to Donna.  Stephanie apparently ran into her in New York City around 2000, where she was working as a bartender.  She was off drugs and dealing with some mental health issues.  Steph said she was really happy and that's all I can ask for.

Occasionally, I purchase a box of Pasta Roni, with its shiny new name, and I always think of Donna and Steph and that strange night.  It still tastes good, only now I have it with a side of steak.

Rape Whistle

Freshman year of college.  I am on campus, dressed in ridiculously oversized green pants, a black nightie and a cardigan full of holes.  My hair is in ponytails and littered with colorful plastic barrettes.  Ok, do we all understand 18 year old Dresden now?  Great.  Let's move on.

My Dad brought me to school despite the fact that I hated him at the time.  I guess he thought it might be a bonding occasion for us.  In truth, I was desperate to get rid of him so I could smoke 1,000 cigarettes.

My school--we'll just call it The University of Dirty Hippies--was tucked gently into the woods, surrounded by tall, strong evergreen trees and lush, green grass.  When I visited as a junior in high school, I knew immediately that I wanted to go there.  For years I had thought of college as a place where I would stage crazy protests, maybe purchase a bullhorn and call my parents from jail.  Dreadlocked boys and girls sat in groups, strumming guitars, having Food Not Bombs meetings and asking people to save the whales.

Yes, I thought.  This is where I shall live out my dream of being born in time to be 18 in 1969. 


But first there was business to attend to.  I had to check in and get my dorm room key.  A smiley white woman beamed up at me from behind a card table.

"Hi!  What's your name?"
"Dresden Jones."
"Can you spell that?"
"D-R-E-S-D-E-N."
"Oh, here you are.  You're in B dorm, room 204.  I'm Colleen, your resident assistant.  Welcome to UDH!"
"Thanks."
"Here is your orientation package, your room keys and your rape whistle."

The whistle was added like the cherry on a sundae, set lovingly on top of the giant green folder meant to orientate me.  It was small and metal, wrapped in plastic.  I stared at it and then looked at her.
"What...what's this?"
Her giant smile never wavered.  "It's your rape whistle.  It's to keep you safe on campus."
I still didn't get it.  My father, standing next to me, chuckled.
"I feel better already", he said sarcastically.

Hours later, after my father was finally gone (I literally sat and watched him through the window until he disappeared and then lit a cigarette), my roommates and I discussed the rape whistle at length. I was living in a 2 bedroom, 4-person dorm room.  Stephanie was my friend from high school whom I had requested to live with; she and I shared a room.  Nelly was in the other room.  Nelly was gorgeous and when I first met her, I thought I was doomed to live with a cheerleader.  Turns out that angelic looking platinum blonde was more like a biker than a supermodel.  And I mean that in the best, most awesome way ever.

"So...you're supposed to blow this fucking thing if you're, like, being attacked?"  Stephanie had a flair for swearing.  90% of the sentences she uttered back then had the word "fuck" or "shit" in them.  This is fine, except when you're at the Golden Vally Perkins at 8am on a Sunday after an all night rave and Stephanie says to the waitress, "This orange juice tastes like a big fucking piece of candy."

None of us understood the concept of the rape whistle.  Say you're being attacked by a violent rapist who jumps out from the woods (which were all around us).  As you're realizing what's happening to you and in full panic mode, you're supposed to have the sense to dig through your purse for the rape whistle you were issued at orientation and blow it?  Or let's say you're hanging out with a guy who you met at a party, who seemed nice and, yeah, you'd like to make out with him a little in his dorm room.  If he gets crazy suddenly and starts forcing himself on you, do you ask him to hold on so you can get your rape whistle?  Some advised that you wear the rape whistle around your neck, so it would always be easily accessible.  In other words, always be ready for rape.  It's going to happen and you've got the whistle to prove it.   This concept was stunning to me.  And goddamn hilarious.

The rape whistle became an accessory for fun.  Stephanie would put it in her mouth, lie on her side and say, "Who am I?" Then she'd blow into the whistle listlessly, her eyes half closed.

"Kate Winselt in Titanic!"  I'd scream.  Then we'd laugh our asses off and eat kettle chips.  Because we were high.

One particularly boring night, some friends and I decided to go break beer bottles against a wall.  Each time a bottle was successfully smashed, we'd all blow our rape whistles.  Stephanie and I were hanging out with a bunch of boys and she decided we could telepathically communicate with each other, only I didn't know this.  She kept looking at me weird but I just assumed she was stoned or drunk...or both.  Finally she took out her rape whistle and blew it as hard as she could.  
"Goddamn Dresden!  Do you have a tampon?!"

My best weapon against rape was actually my umbrella.  It was western Washington state, so it was always raining.  And walking home late from the library was sort of scary--we were in the woods.  There were creepy drug addicted homeless people on campus all the time because UDH was where everyone bought their drugs.  I would hold my umbrella like a bat until I could see the lights of the dorms.  I didn't truly believe that I would ever be raped because I believed that rape was a crazy Lifetime movie event that only happened to Meredith Baxter Birney and Tracy Gold.  The most stunning part of going away to college is finding out all the stuff you didn't know.

At the end of that school year, a report was released letting us all know that the rape whistles had failed to do their jobs: there had been 8 sexual assaults on campus, and those are just the ones that were reported.  I know a lot has changed since...back then...and I pray that colleges have discontinued phoning it in with something as ridiculous as a rape whistle and are instead educating their students about sexual assault.  But I'd like to thank the rape whistle for hours of entertainment during that weird, painful, fun, confusing year.  I wish I still had it.