There was nothing more ravishing on Oscar night than the smashing onscreen pairing of two men that sent me sprinting out of the bathroom. Dripping wet and holding my towel, I gazed at the screen as Leonardo DiCaprio joked awkwardly with Al Gore about presidential elections and global warming.
As they stood there, each looking dashing and talking passionately about issues that made Gore seem almost dreamy despite the fact that each jerky movement threatened to rip his tailored tux, my roommate snapped me out of my trance.
""You know what's wild,"" she said. ""Eight years ago, those two had bottomed out. Now look at them—they're back at their late-'90s peak. It's practically an Al Gore love fest."" She was right. After eight years of bad luck, Leo and Gore had bounced back. Well, if they can do it, I thought to myself in my towel, so can I.
For the past three years, I've had a run of bad luck. I prefer to liken it to Leo DiCaprio's post-""Titanic,"" ""Man in the Iron Mask"" and ""The Beach"" phase, or Al Gore's post-2000 beard-and-a-beer-gut episode.
It started with mono that hit me freshman year, which I acquired from a dirty bubbler (water fountain) and not a cute boy. My glands swelled to the size of two softballs—the doctors at UHS found their size ""fascinating""—and it took me out of school for two weeks during midterms. The bad luck continued with repeated sweaty run-ins with the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen, four consecutive rain-induced wipe-outs in front of Van Hise, and finding out that I was always in the one journalism class without attractive boys.
But this year has been the worst. It started with what I thought was dry skin. But three days later, after I had broken out in a speckled rash, I found out that it was pityriasis rosea.
""Oh my, oh my!"" the doctor at UHS had said rather too excitedly. ""You have such a textbook case, this is almost perfect."" He lectured me on its causes (unknown), its cure (unknown) and joked that I had a fun six to eight weeks in store for myself. But if the rosea hadn't cleared up by then, I should stop in—it could be a rash common with secondary syphilis.
The color drained from my face.
""I'm just joshing with you,"" he said, laughing. ""But seriously—this rash is confused with it sometimes. You don't have syphilis, do you? You'd be the first college case here in years.""
That was five weeks ago. Since then, I've had a full-speed, smack-into-someone, papers-flying-on-the-ground run-in with a blond boy I had asked out via a passed note. He never called. Eye contact was made as I recovered enough to dart in the bathroom.
But, as the camera panned the crowd, my heart skipped a beat each time it settled on Leonardo DiCaprio. It skipped a few more when it settled on Tipper and Al. As a puddle formed around my feet, I realized my bad luck situation will go away.
That is, until I realized that the water from my hair was dripping onto my thesis notes.
If you'd like to share your bad luck (or good luck) stories with Caitlin, please email her at cfcieslikmis@wisc.edu.
