Floyd Kelly

My college roommate, Steve, had a quirk. I discovered this yesterday while trying to write a paper. Our room, smelling of socks and microwaved burritos, was pierced by a high-pitched falsetto and a ukulele.

“Steve, what is that?” I yelled. “Turn it off! I can’t concentrate.” He just smiled serenely. “It’s Tiptoe Through the Tulips by Tiny Tim. You gotta feel the music, Dave. It’s the vibe.”

He then got up, grabbed a bean and cheese burrito, and popped it in our gross microwave. He hit ‘Popcorn,’ crouched with his face to the glass, and watched it spin. When it DINGED, Steve leapt up, arms wide, and yelled, “Oh yeah, oh yeah honey, oh yeah sugah… OH YEAH!”

He grabbed the burrito, took a huge bite, his cheeks puffing out. “What was that?” I asked.

“That,” he said with a mouthful of beans and cheese, “was wictory… oops, I mean victory.”

Okay, so my roommate was weird. The first few weeks were a blur of beer and bad decisions, and I realized his ritual wasn’t a one-off. At a dorm party, he won at beer pong with a cool shot and yelled his signature move to the cheering peeps: “Oh yeah, oh yeah honey, oh yeah sugah… OH YEAH!”

When our sociology professor, Dr. Albright, assigned a project worth half our grade, I had to laugh when he paired us up. Working with Steve was an adventure, as he celebrated every tiny milestone, starting with the outline. “Dude, we finished it! Burrito time!” he cheered.

“It’s just the outline! We haven’t written anything!” I protested. But he just quoted something about a journey of a thousand miles before starting his: “Oh yeah, oh yeah honey, oh yeah sugah” routine.

The night before it was due, we were hopelessly behind, the floor a sea of textbooks and empty burrito wrappers. Running on fumes, I dropped my head on the desk. “This is impossible. We’re going to fail.”

Steve stopped, burrito in hand, his goofy smile gone. “We’re not gonna fail. You’re so stressed about the finish line you miss the little victories. C’mon, celebrate to get the energy to write that first page.”

I stared at him, at the mess, and started to laugh, realizing he was right. “Okay,” I said, grinning. “Go get another burrito.” We worked all night, stopping after every paragraph to nuke a burrito and yell the mantra together. It was the most insane, joyful, productive night of my life. We turned in a messy and stained paper that reeked of burritos and got a B+, the best I ever earned!

Months later, at a miserable summer internship, my boss chewed me out. I felt like a failure and wanted to cry. I went to the break room to heat my lunch, and the microwave dinged. My stomach lurched, until a memory hit me: Steve, arms wide, yelling with joy, a triumphant apparition in my mind. I looked around the empty break room, a genuine smile on my face, and yelled, “Oh yeah, oh yeah honey, oh yeah sugah… OH YEAH!”