The Mohan Chronicles

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far away, well, not too far away, Poughkeepsie, NY.  I was a student at Marist College.  I was friends with a group of guys that lived in a townhouse on campus.  I didn't live there technically, but was around and slept there enough, that I did.  We had all known each other from the year before or even longer in some cases.  We all thought we were hilarious, as well as each other.  The main group of guys lived up stairs in the three bedrooms there and were like a fraternity, without all the pomp and circumstance.  We had the same or similar interests and did most things together.  There were two rooms downstairs and the guys down there pretty much kept to themselves.  In one room, were a couple of guys on the football team.  I was friendly with them and got a couple of free haircuts that semester.  Always good to know someone that cuts hair.  I didn't know the guys in the second room, they were like ghosts, except when they came home drunk.  Normally, this would be the end of the bedrooms, but this townhouse was handicap accessible, so there was a bedroom on the main floor.

Jim was the guy in that bedroom.  He had MS and got the disease early in his life, as he was already in an automated wheelchair at 19.  We quickly became good friends, due to our mutual loves of music, sports and girls.  We just got each other, almost instantly.  I'd stand on the back of his chair and we'd cruise around campus.  He also loved coming to my radio show.  I'd put him on air and we'd make fun of each others favorite bands/musicians.  So when we all heard there would be a new roommate moving into Jim's room, we got a little curious.  We had heard the new guy coming into the house was being kicked out of current house due to the fact that he harassed girls.  Whoa, wait a second!  You want to throw a guy into a house with a bunch of guys that aren't exactly skilled with the ladies.  Except at the time for Eli, I'll give you your props if you read this.  So on top of the obvious, you want to make it harder for all of us to ever have girls come over.  What did we ever do to you?

Enter...Mohan.  He kinda looked like this guy, minus the porn-stache, but just as smarmy looking and an equally sharp dresser.

You could mix in a little classic Erik Estrada as well.  He sounded like he learned to speak English by watching game shows in the mid-70's.  Which could be the truth, I never had the heart to ask him.  So, we were initially nice to him.  We tried to give him the benefit of just bad info.  Then the first strike against him happened. 

Jim had lost the key to his room early in first semester.  Since, he was the only one in his room at the time, it was no big deal, he left his door unlocked all the time.  Nobody would ever mess with his stuff anyways.  Mohan moves in and Jim tells him about the lost key.  Jim explains, that all the guys are cool and nobody ever goes into the bedroom unless he's home.  Mohan agrees to leave it unlocked.  One day, I'm hanging out at the house and Jim comes bombing in.  He needs to pick a book up before his next class in 20 minutes, no time to talk, we'll hangout later.  Jim goes to open his door and it's, locked.  Jim starts freaking out.  Vigo, one of the housemates and I, go to work.  He grabs a butter knife and pops the bolts on the hinges, as I hold the door.  The door comes right off and Jim can enter his room.  Jim thanks us and books out, to get to his class.  About, a half hour later, Mohan comes home.  He asks why the door is off the hinges.  We explain the story and the fact that we were too lazy to put it back on.  We oblige him and repair the door, but also remind him not to lock it.  He agrees. 

Needless to say, Mohan would "forget" to leave the door unlocked, often.  It got to the point where we figured he was messing with Jim.  You don't mess with a handicapped kid in wheelchair that can't fight back.  It's just not cool, in my eyes.  Besides, we're the only ones that were allowed to mess with him.  By this time, you could just pop the door off by hand.  We had done it so many times before, that all you had to do was look at it and it would come off on it's own.  The thing that made us laugh, was every time we'd do it, Mohan would freak out about it.  So, we turned it into a game called, Hide the Door on Mohan.  Since he already sounded like he was from a game show, he could host.  We'd put the door on the porch, upstairs (where he wasn't allowed), downstairs (where the football players would kill him) or other special places, like across campus.  It was his job to find it.  The game would always start like this.  Mohan (and the studio audience): "Where's my door?"  Us: "You know, I don't know.  I think it left."  Narrator: "You know what that means!!!"  Audience: "Time to Find the Door!!!" (Crazed clapping and cheering) 

He brought it upon himself.  All we were doing was looking out for a friend.  This is just the tip of the iceberg with Mr. Mohan.  As he got worse, we got worse.  There are more stories to come.  Hope you enjoyed.

Editor's note:  I'll use nicknames whenever I can, just in case someone does something crazy, like try to run for office.  Although, they have much larger things to worry about than my little stories from college.