Last year, my roommate decided to bring home pumpkins for us to carve. Since I moved into my room later in the semester, I did not really know my roommate well enough to say no or realize the responsibility that came with having pumpkins in the room. However, because we carved pumpkins in the room, it allowed us to truly bond as roommates. This was the first time we had spent quality time together besides awkward dinners at the dining halls. After we carved the pumpkins we took cute photos with them and placed them in the windows with lights. The pumpkins added a cute fall aesthetic to the room while allowing us to truly become better friends, rather than just two people living together.
After we carved the pumpkins, a week later we both decided to go home for the weekend. When I returned, the pumpkins had been rotting the entire weekend in our room. Since I returned a day before my roommate, I was forced to clean up the mess. The windows in my room were painted shut and could not be opened, so the smell lingered even longer. I kept our door open the entire day, had the air conditioner on full blast, and wiped down the area with disinfecting wipes. I also had to spray air freshener to get rid of the smell, but I had to time it out every five minutes to carefully avoid setting off the sensitive fire alarms. The smell of the rotten pumpkin was in the room for at least two weeks.
While carving the pumpkins was a lot of fun and a great bonding activity for my roommate and me, we made a mistake and left the pumpkins too long. Carving pumpkins in a dorm room can be a lot of fun, but make sure you throw them away before they begin to rot, or if you are going out of town for a few days. My roommate and I still remember how fun it was to carve the pumpkins and consider it the start of our friendship. Even though the room smelled like rotten pumpkins for a while, it was definitely worth the memories.