Dorm-Warming Gift

I don't remember where I got the thing, but it was easily the best housewarming gift ever.  Excited like Christmas, I rushed out of my dorm room, looking for a place to try out my new javelin.

I exited the building by a ground-level door I just happened to be at -- no hallway, stairs, or elevator getting me there.  And I walked onto a plain side street lined with brick or concrete school buildings and smaller, brightly painted houses that could have been college property, too.  It could have been a part of nearly any campus I've seen in NY, New England, or western PA.  I even checked for cars, and approved of midday's lack of traffic.  Stepping out into the road, I watched my right hand heft the white, wooden javelin.  And then, feeling like Zeus surely did with his first lightning bolt, I made a first, experimental toss.

It sucked.

My first four throws all sucked, in fact.  I posed really well before each one, striking a classic Greek stance with the shaft extended along my arm.  But upon launching the javelin each time, it wobbled forward a few yards and then clattered down awkwardly on the pavement.  Not once did I manage to even get the pointed tip aimed down first.  Apparently, I had the best gift ever, and no ability to use it.  I shrugged and moved on.

After some completely illogical dream-reasoning, I concluded that I simply needed a better practice venue.  My final toss had landed past the row of cars parked street-side.  Retrieving the javelin, I walked over to the closest building and entered, for no discernible reason.  Fortunately, the hangar-shaped structure turned out to house a gymnasium with high ceilings, a wood-paneled floor, and wide windows that looked out onto a hillside scene of winding trails and pine trees.  Sadly, the entire floor of the gym was taken up by couples practicing various types of ballroom dance, and even my dream self knew better than to hurl a sharp javelin among a horde of swaying, circling bodies.  I carried the pointed pole through the center, feeling that the trails and hillside paths beyond the far doors held more potential.

Tracing an upward winding path over rocky outcroppings and past drooping trees, I failed to discover a clearing where Zeus-style hurls could be mimicked with my white, wooden lightning bolt.  Instead, I proceeded down a decline that curled around into a natural spa area of mud pots and lounging bathers.  In round, brown-filled cauldrons, a series of swimsuit clad hedonists enjoyed the twin luxuries of mineral-rich mud and sexy bodies.  Further along the line, the partakers of the dirty baths became decidedly more Indian in appearance, skin matching the pot contents while lavish, colorful wraps floated unspoiled on the surface.  The lighting had gone from mountain-top sunlight to subterranean cavern-crawl dimness.  Yet here, in the shadows, the mud-pop steam wafting to the tunnel top, amid the secretive bathers, I found help.  An older Indian woman, wrapped clothes untouched by the mud she lounged in, beckoned me to join her, with the promise of assistance in my javelin-tossing endeavors.

It was about then that the real sunlight streaming through my apartment window tore me back to the real world, where my best college dorm trinket had been a mug labeled "JAVA" on one side.  Oh, well.