My freshman year of college at Moorhead State University (now Minnesota State University Moorhead) was not a pleasant one.

My first assigned roommate in Neumaier Hall was eventually kicked out of the building by our third floor RA. He went on to become a wanted cult leader and was featured in the “Cults, Religion & Mind Control” episode of E!’s THS Investigates.

My second assigned roommate in Neumaier Hall was a fellow who brought and stored an AK-something and a couple of full ammo cans in our dorm room. Blah blah Russian made blah blah Chinese assault blah blah semi-automatic but blah blah filed the blah blah now fully automatic blah blah. On more than one occasion, I’d come home and open the dorm room door to find him naked on his lower dorm bunk, cleaning his rifle. Not a euphemism, although it is also a euphemism. One evening while I was at work, our dorm room was raided by a cop/fed combo and after the RA filled me in later that night, I never saw him or heard about him again.

But the worst part of my freshman year was a TV commercial for Friendly Motors that aired late at night. In it, there was a portly man wearing a white suit and white cowboy hat like Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard. There might’ve been a donkey or mule standing beside him in the car lot. The man wore a mask and opened the commercial with, “Hi! I’m the Loan Arranger!”

I still have nightmares.

They later demolished Neumaier Hall. I assume they did that so that nobody else had to go through what I went through.