Silence can be incredibly irksome. While I consider myself a patient and understanding person, I still have basic requirements for those who wish to be my friend. First and foremost is that you must contribute to the social atmosphere. Most people at least donate a solid individual presence. Some possess little substance, but still chime in on occasion. And some are just obnoxiously quiet. But even obnoxiousness is more acceptable to me than being a complete non-entity. This just means that you are occupying space in the room that could be utilized for something more interesting, like a bag of heavily salted snack treats. Or even the majestic beauty of the average igneous rock formation.

In case I’ve been too subtle up to this point, let me make my point as plainly as I can: I can’t stand wastes-o’-space. Katie has come to epitomize this character flaw in my mind. Katie. The name alone bores me, no offense to anyone named Katie except for the parasitic pile of organ meats that glommed onto my group of friends during my first few weeks of college. I harbor deep frustration with the memory of this girl, and I actually wish that I could delete this one from my mind. But I hope retelling this tale will serve as a literary exorcism, allowing me to be once and for all at peace with these grating events.

I met many different people during those first few weeks of higher education, most of whom I don’t even remember. Katie, unfortunately, made enough of a splash to surpass this group. I never learned her last name, but she was a somewhat dumpy blonde with a bad slouch and some very trashy choices in apparel. She lived on the female floor of Wilcox Hall, my dormitory; although I never cared enough to find out which room was hers.

Katie slipped into my life as a face in a larger crowd. She was there when we gathered to smoke weed. She was there when we went party hopping. She was there at mealtimes. And after a few days, given our policy of never locking our door, she was there when I returned from the communal showers. She was just there. I was never anything more than polite to this girl, and I guess that prompted her to believe that she was my friend.

Soon it became painfully apparent that Katie, much like nature’s cockroach, wasn’t going to leave on her own. During the evenings of those first two weeks she would come into my room, where I often sat, doing my own thing. My roommate Matt was usually out making the most of dorm life. I was much less of a go-getter, and before I had established a group of friends in this new place, I spent most evenings playing on my new computer, reading, or talking on the phone to friends back home. Katie was there during most of these somewhat lonely nights. I might have been glad to have the companionship, save for the fact that Katie offered absolutely none. She just sat on my bed, saying nothing unless spoken to. After so many awkward silences, I was forced to make excuses as to why she couldn’t hang around anymore. “I’m really tired” wasn’t enough of a hint for this girl. I had to say “I’m really tired, and I need to go to sleep”. Once she left, I would stay up for another few hours, increasingly glad that at least she responded to so straight-forward a dismissal.

But Katie would always return, like clockwork, to once again bask in the glory of our sessions of sheer boredom. As I gradually formed friendships with my other hall mates, Katie would tail me to their rooms. Even after the addition of several other people to my circle, she still had nothing to contribute. She was JUST THERE. I was pleased to find out that this was not exclusively my own observation. My other acquaintances remarked on just how crushingly dull her presence was, without my commenting on it first.

My friends Chris and Brad were especially bothered by her company. These two definitely felt my pain. On one of the rare nights during which the three of us were gathered and Katie was nowhere to be bored by, we made a solemn pact. We each swore allegiance to an active campaign in which we would ditch this girl whenever possible. I hadn’t entered into an arrangement of that kind since seventh grade, and even then it seemed a tad childish. However, I hold firmly to the belief that it was Katie that drove us to this course of action. At times of such desperation, one must do what one must in order to affect change. The bitch made me do it.

But none of us truly comprehended the sheer tenacity of Katie’s resolve. As we proceeded to move to different rooms in our hall, she followed. We told her that we were going to the nearby 7-11, and she would tag along. It got to the point where we would tell her that we all had separate, indistinct places to go, pretend to leave whichever room we occupied, and as she left, would immediately reconvene in the same room we had just sworn to leave. In my experience, these sorts of relationships always end with bold action, bent upon the excommunication of the offending party.

On a mundane Wednesday evening, Chris, Brad, Katie, and I were all gathered in Chris’ room. Brad announced that he knew of a party only a few blocks off of campus. We all agreed, except for Katie, who true to form said nothing, that we would make the trek. It was raining exceptionally hard that night, but we were determined to attend, if for no other reason than it would provide a distraction from Katie’s omnipresence. The three males walked in tight formation with Katie trailing only a few feet behind. Because of the rain, the three of us knew that Katie couldn’t hear what we were saying. This gave us the opportunity to formulate a plan of action.

The three of us agreed that when we got to the party we would simply lose her in the crowd. I felt that this was a solid plan, and with a little bit of improvisation, would surely succeed. WRONG. As we entered whosever house it was that threw this party, Katie stuck to us with practiced doggedness. We zigged, we zagged, we went into the backyard, we went to the back rooms; and with every move, she remained fixed at our rear. Chris ran into a friend of his from one of his classes, who informed him of another party only two blocks from this one. We collectively decided to investigate this option.

We tried to exit with sufficient haste to avoid our irritating tail, but she was on us like a barnacle to the hull of a ship. The rain was still dumping down as we located this second house party. To our collective delight, this gathering was larger than the last, which brought new confidence that we could shake the trashy interloper. We employed the same circuitous movement patterns we had used at the last party. Katie managed to keep up with us for most of it, until finally our window of opportunity opened, presenting a very welcome avenue of escape.

We lost sight of Katie as we moved out onto the back porch. We each surveyed the crowd, and all agreed that she was nowhere to be seen. Chris suggested that we leave as soon as possible and head back to Wilcox Hall. Brad and I demonstrated our agreement by moving swiftly down the side stairs, the three of us leaving the property through the side gate. We had done it. Our social dogfight had ended, and we managed to escape relatively unscathed. Or so it seemed. But such a subtly evasive maneuver was not to be the carrier of our message to that broad. We simply weren’t getting off that easily.

As we swiftly crossed the street, each of us looked over our shoulders to confirm that we weren’t being followed; so far, so good. But less than a block later, we each verified that Katie had zeroed in on our position and was walking out of the front door to pursue us. All courtesy and dignity had been permanently compromised. We weren’t giving this girl the slip without having to demonstrate just how little we desired her company. The decision to flee came suddenly. Hunter S. Thompson’s words have never rung more true than in this instance. We ran. We ran for dear sanity. We ran like children chasing an ice cream truck. The base desire to flee was such a liberating experience that only I looked back at our pursuer.

I’ll never forget the last image of Katie I have in my brain. There she was, walking after her fleeing host bodies, drenched in rain, betraying very little emotion about the events of the past few seconds. As I continued to run, I felt a pang of guilt, as if I had become one of those mean kids that ditches the weaker member of the group for personal entertainment. I realized that I was a jerk.

As we collectively dried off in Chris’ room, I couldn’t relieve myself of the terrible feeling that we had deprived this poor girl of her only social outlet, and that I had maintained such high friendship standards as to expel her for not measuring up. But a few days later, I learned that Katie truly deserved the punishment we had so callously meted out.

According to a group of girls who lived on the female floor above us, Katie had been quite the talker when she wasn’t in my presence. She had been bragging for many days about her relationships with the occupants of the male floor of Wilcox Hall. Katie claimed to have had sex with just about every guy in the dorm, including Chris, Brad, and me. I was so appalled at this preposterous insinuation that I immediately recounted the details of our ungraceful escape only nights previous. This was received by riotous laughter and collective shit-talking. I haven’t felt one iota of guilt since then.

I can now say that reliving this waste of my time has not cured me of the ire I feel towards Katie. She contributed nothing and managed to sully my clean slate provided by a new environment within the first two weeks of its existence. The only warm thoughts I have towards Katie are images of her sitting on the porch of a trailer in backwoods Oregon, surrounded by numerous screaming children with kool-aid mustaches, pregnant, wearing a flowered moo-moo, drinking a tall can of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and smoking a Virginia Slim menthol cigarette. And maybe various car parts strewn across the lawn. Aaahh, yes. That makes me feel much better.