Foamy Mouths and Tattooed Backs | Taylor Trost

Steam fills the room and goosebumps are unavoidable. I move the curtain aside, cold water dripping down my back as I exit the shower. 12:47 am and I have to wake up at 6:30. Yet this doesn’t stop me from having full-on conversions with others in the common restroom we all share. I am nothing if not chatty and eager to meet new people. I don’t know the girl next to me, but the flower painted into her skin intrigues me. I can’t stop staring at it, although I know it’s rude. I feel like each bit of ink pressed into skin represents a story of the past and the people we are. It makes me want to know the story and I can’t help but feel the need to ask. We smile at each other, but without showing our teeth to prevent the escape from toothpaste and mouthwash. It’s the beginning of a friendship.

Minutes pass as I ask questions I know I will never remember the answers to. In between spitting out my toothpaste I ask, “Where’s your hometown?” A small town with a complex yet generic name that has already left my mind. It’s almost like a game because it’s so hard to hear with the toothpaste in our mouths so we have to guess what each other is saying. “What’s your major?” Exercise Sport Science. One of the 10,000 on this campus, I swear. I’m never going to remember that. That’s one of the joys of meeting new people in college. There is ethical code that allows you to ask the most basic questions without any requirements of knowing the answer. It’s a weird aspect of human nature I would say. The wanting to know others better, the need to talk in the bathroom, yet the mutual understanding that none of this information must be maintained. The air continues to get colder as I grip my towel tighter. I bend over, spit, and head to bed for another day of familiar faces and answers to questions I won’t remember.