By Liz Scholz

Seth Garfinkel (Atlanta, Ga., International Studies), Arjay Velasco (New York, N.Y., Sociology), and Beth Miller (Evanston, Ill., Political Science) met on Turck 1 freshman year and have lived together since junior year. Now they reside in a duplex across the street from a fire station, and when they’re not collectively stressing, they’re eating cake or taking a sip of “whatever drink they have in their hands” when they hear a siren.

TMW: Why have you been making so many cakes recently?

Arjay Velasco: Because I’ve been stressed. And when you’re stressed you want something to eat.

Seth Garfinkel: And he writes things on the white board, like “Let me eat cake!”

SG: Arjay probably eats the least amount of it.

AV: Because I make it. And you know when you make your own food it doesn’t taste as good.

BM: Arjay’s very maternal in his instincts. He likes to do things for us, and kind of. . we’ll come and he’ll be like, “How’s your day?” He likes to sit us down and talk to us.

SG: Arjay very kindly wakes me up in the mornings when I oversleep, which is nice, and I really like it. I have a little problem oversleeping and waking up from my alarm clock, and Beth has been annoyed in past years by my alarm waking her up and not waking me up. And this happened freshman year because we lived next door to each other and again last year because we lived next door to each other. So Arjay would wake me up by like a nice tap on the door, like “It’s ten o’clock.” Beth would be like [bang bang bang].

BM: His alarm clock is so effing annoying. It sounds like a phone ringing. Freshman year, we didn’t really hang out first semester at all, and all first semester there was some stupid alarm clock that sounded like a phone ring going off that I would get so mad at. And where was it that I heard your alarm go off for some reason?
SG: We were in the hallway, and I forgot to turn my alarm off.

BM: Yeah, so it went off, and I was like “Oh my god!” And he was like, “Sorry that’s my alarm, I’ll be right back.” I’m surprised that we were still friends after that discovery.

TMW: How did you guys decide to live together?

AV: Just a five minute conversation at dinner established that we’d be living together senior year. That was that.

SG: Actually true.

BM: There was a moment-I went through a weeklong phase last year where I thought maybe I’d want to move in with girls, which then lead to that five minute conversation at dinner. I was kind of like, “Maybe I should be around women more.” And they were like, “Well, you could be, or you could not be.” And then I thought about it and decided it probably would be better to not be.

TMW: You guys did a lot of pranks freshman year, do you still do that?

AV: Yes. We’ve been having mice in the house. . Seth is really scared of mice. He screams like a girl.
BM: And runs out of the house.

AV: And runs out of the room. So Seth, while we were at IKEA, bought this miniature mice stuffed animal thing and we’ve just been trying to put it anywhere. Someone’s laundry bag, someone’s cereal.

SG: We have real and fake mice.

BM: So that’s become slightly less startling as time’s worn on but it’s something that we still do.

SG: But I’d have to say the most startling, and the most girlish screams heard in this house, I believe were one night we were leaving Jordan and Nora’s house, and they [Beth and Arjay] left before I did.

BM: Oh this wasn’t a prank, this was just lame.

SG: It’s not a prank, but it’s funny. They left before I did, but I ended up getting a ride home with Andy, so I got home faster because they had to walk. And I knew they were really close to being home and I knew they didn’t know I was home.

AV: So once we opened the door, “BAH!” Intruder in the house.

SG: And they flipped a shit.

BM: Yeah, I flipped my shit. Ok. But this is after when I was coming in the back door and Seth was in the kitchen, and the door was locked right, and I was trying to open it, and I hear him on the other side like “Oh, hold on, one second.” So I stopped trying to open the door and he comes up, and unlocks the door and opens it, and as he’s opening it, the second he sees me, “AH!” And I was like “What? You knew it was me!” He’s like, “But I realized as I was opening the door that it could’ve been anybody.”

AV: I think those are the only pranks.

BM: We used to do a lot of pranks freshman year.

AV: We’ve grown up.

SG: That’s not true.

BM: We’ve gotten bored of them.

SG: That’s also not true.

BM: But like freshman year we did a lot of really, some would say, immature facebook pranks, that was like a daily occurrence. It got to the point where-I think all of our pranks got to the point where we had trouble hanging out together.

AV: I had to hide my teddy bear because I didn’t want it to get taken.

BM: Because Arjay had taken mine first! So he had what was coming to him.
SG: Or the time we took Arjay’s food without telling him. Arjay had this nice bin of food in his room with like great snacks: Oreos, girl scout cookies, goldfish, Swiss Miss. Really neatly organized under his bed. So we took it without telling him, and we’re in our room. . and we’re like Arjay, want some food? And we started feeding Arjay his own food. And he was really appreciative of us.

AV: I was like “I’ll go get mine.” They were like “No no no..”

BM: “We always eat your food Arjay, don’t worry.” And we were like, you can have some Swiss Miss, I’ve got the kind with the little marshmallows in them. And Arjay got so excited, he’s like, “Oh my god! That’s the kind I’ve got!” So I was like, “I’ll go make you some.”

TMW: What are some things that you guys like to do together?

AV: Recently we’ve been watching Saved By the Bell because we got seasons one and two for Beth’s birthday.

BM: Best birthday present ever. … We go see really shitty movies and do double features. So we’ll go to a big cinaplex, and just pay for one and go see a second one for free. As long as Rosedale isn’t reading this, we’ll be fine. Last time we went we saw Halloween 2, the Rob Zombie version. And then we snuck into Final Destination 4. It was so bad.

AV: It would’ve been better in 3D. We didn’t have 3D glasses because we snuck in.. There was 3D version and a regular one and we couldn’t go to the 3D version because we didn’t have the glasses.

SG: I wish we ate dinner together, I miss that. That was the nice thing about living on campus and the meal plan. One of the few nice things.
AV: Seth actually gets mad at me when I eat, and he eats at the same time.

BM: Arjay eats in his room!
SG: I’ll be eating at the table, and Arjay will be eating in his bedroom, 20 feet away.

BM: Arjay’s like a hamster, he takes all of his food and eats it in his room, and then he’ll come out with his dishes.

AV: I clean my stuff though!
SG: Eventually.

BM: When we run out of bowls.

AV: Yes, I have problems using all the bowls.

SG: Because he will only use certain bowls in our house. He refuses to use bowls that are not blue and shiny.

AV: That’s a lie.

BM: That’s actually true. But that’s not the reason he uses them. AV: I like them when they’re ceramic.

BM: But my mom brought these great bowls that I used throughout my childhood, and he doesn’t use them.

AV: I think I had this one bad experience with them where like the cereal tasted weird because like.

SG: Because there weren’t flowers on the bottom?
AV: Whatever.

TMW: What is the one thing you will miss most about Macalester?

AV: I think the one thing that I miss so much when I go home is the accessibility to my friends because when I’m at home I have to like call everyone and travel for 45 minutes to have dinner with someone. Whereas here, I’m just going to knock on someone’s door like two blocks away, and my friends are there.

SG: I’m w
ith Arjay on that it’s really nice to have people who you’re friends with really close by all the time. But I think something I’m going to miss the most, which is weird, because it’s also the thing that I by far complain about the most, if you look at it from where I expect to be in five years, I think there’s something really soothing about what I have to do at Macalester is what? Like, go to a coffee shop with a friend and do some reading, and although the work feels overwhelming at times and can definitely be stressful, I think being collectively stressed is really bonding. It’s really bonding. I think I’ll definitely miss that in addition to all the social experiences.

BM: Those are both really good answers. I think I’ll miss. . I like the sense of belonging at Macalester. I feel like when I walk around campus-I can’t remember the last time I walked around campus and didn’t see everyone I know. It’s the Macalester bubble, which is very very very frustrating in a lot of ways, but now that I’m a senior and can make that bubble what I want it to be, and break it when I want to, I like that it’s there. It’s very soothing.

AV: But also, lastly, at least for this house, the thing I’m going to miss the most is opening the door and being like, “Hello! Is anyone home?” And then it’s kind of nice when you hear that someone is.

SG: And always saying goodnight. We’re pretty good about greetings.

BM: We’re big on formalities.