Roommate Reflections

Five Letters

My senior year the college started a drama group that I joined. The woman who led the group was a professor in one or two classes, one of which Sunflower was in. So when she took an intense dislike to Sunflower, I knew enough about her to believe that her dislike was totally unfounded.

I'm not sure how it started. I think Sunflower disagreed with her about something or contested a grade she was given, but however it started, from then on, the professor went out of her way to be mean to Sunflower.

Each paper Sunflower turned in was marked down viciously, glaring red slashes across the page for petty things that other students were not being marked down for. Conclusions Sunflower came to and even sentence structure were attacked, lowering Sunflower's admirable GPA considerably with each assignment.

Many times after receiving an assignment back, Sunflower would be in tears, not understanding the obscene delight the professor seemed to take in attacking her work. Before each assignment, she would pass her paper around to The Roommates for critique, ensuring that spelling, grammar, flow of thought, and conclusions were all as flawless as she could make them. Still, however, the professor marked her down, for things as petty as word choice and topic.

Finally, Sunflower wrote a letter to the professor, kindly and respectfully contesting her latest grade and asking what she had done to deserve such treatment.

The professor wrote back, snippily and haughtily suggesting that Sunflower was petty, immature, and rude.

Sunflower wrote back, again in a respectful tone, defending herself, and again was attacked by another letter from the professor decrying her behavior, until Sunflower was ready to drop the class altogether in her frustration, despite the damage it would do to her grade.

Now, The Roommates always made up nicknames for people, to describe them to each other while not revealing to Non-Roommates who that person was. For example, one boy who was always surrounded by a gaggle of admiring girls was nicknamed Mr. Mambo (from the song Mambo Number 5, which was popular at the time). One term I used a lot and passed to the rest of the roommates to describe an unpleasant female was Shrew.

So, after the last letter, as we sat in The Apartment sympathizing with Sunflower over her decidedly unfair treatement, I said, "We should come up with a nickname for her."

"Like The Shrew," Sunflower spat, all the venom born of months of abuse seething in her voice.

In my usual glib manner, attempting to make light of a tense situation, I quipped, 'I was thinking Evil Beast Monster From Hades, but The Shrew works, too."

As often happens, my suggestion stuck, and to this day we use EBMFH when we want to describe someone truly terrible.