The Drunken Stork (Phil’s Controlling Nature Manifests)–College Memoirs: Life at Roanoke–February 1994, Part 3

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on July 25, 2013April 19, 2023

Phil was good friends with Dirk, the obnoxious one. It was maybe the next week after we got together when Phil asked me to go to Muehlmeier, where Dirk lived. There in the lounge I found him and Dirk sitting at a table near a window facing the lagoon, and playing Magik. I played a few games with them, losing them all, and it still bored me.

***

As always, I waited for the guy to say “I love you” first. But Phil said it even sooner than Peter did: on one of our first dates, as I’ve already mentioned.

This time I didn’t say “ditto” as I did with Peter; often I didn’t say anything. It was too soon; I didn’t want to confuse infatuation with love, because love meant marriage.

Phil may have complained about this. Then when I did feel like I loved him, I would answer his “I love you” with “I love you.”

He complained that it didn’t sound right when I didn’t say “I love you too.” It may have been something about not acknowledging that he loved me; I don’t remember now.

***

Sometime in February, we went to a party in the Phi-Delt suite for Ralph Z.’s birthday. Cindy and Catherine had both dated a guy named Jason. He showed up; Phil kept telling him his name was Bruce. A year or two later, Jason still remembered him as Bruce at the party.

Phil kept putting his arm around me and talking like the drunken stork from Looney Toons, telling everyone, “We’re going out.” People thought he really was drunk, but I tried to tell them he was just drinking Mountain Dew. People got annoyed (even me), and I tried to get him to stop, but it didn’t work.

Phil got up once; Mike sat down and cuddled up next to me. Mike pretended to try to steal me away, to which Phil said I cost a buck fifty (running gag between us). Mike said, “That’s all it takes? A buck fifty?”

All evening, people kept saying, “Shut up, Phil,” especially Pearl. I was mortified at his behavior, and how he disregarded everyone else’s feelings.

Finally, he left the suite, and someone closed the door behind him, pretending to have thrown him out. It was a game, though partly they meant it, being so very annoyed by him. They thought he’d come back in a few minutes.

Instead, we got a phone call. Mike answered and tried to talk to Phil, but Phil just kept plaintively wailing, “Nyssa. Nyssa!” So I had to come to the phone.

I said hello, but for a moment he said nothing. I tried to get something out of him, but it was harder than pulling a tooth. Finally he said, “I’m at the phone outside Krueger. Are you going to come here, or stay there?”

I didn’t want to leave my friends, but didn’t feel I had much of a choice. He wasn’t coming back to the party, either. Cindy had long since left the party with Ralph Z. and some others, and then returned to Roanoke after bowling; she found him there at Krueger. He said to her,

“She’ll come here, if she knows what’s good for her.”

If I’d known Phil said such a thing, I might never have gone back to Krueger for him. But I didn’t, so I went, and spent long hours comforting him. I don’t believe I told him that what he did at the party was okay, because I still thought he’d been obnoxious and annoying. Mike thought he shouldn’t have made me leave the party like that.

Cindy told me his words a few years later (we were co-workers), and that they left not because of Phil being obnoxious, but because they planned to go bowling at a certain time. It was Ralph’s birthday party, but he left it early, so we all thought Phil was the reason. Well, okay, maybe he was partly the reason.

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)
Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year

Summer 1992:

September 1992: