Apple Cake with Coconut Caramel

and "The Dick Van Dyke Show"

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I refreshed the page in horror. It has to be here.

I pressed the little arrowed circle twice more. Refresh. Refresh.

My dorm room was a curiosity of the decrepit freshman row — a building block that was rumored to have been condemned the year before; a place where no dancing, sudden movements, or groups of more than four were allowed to gather on the top floors. A large grey stain on my ceiling grew in sluggish undulations throughout the year. Some second-floor kid supposedly fell through the first floor ceiling a couple years before. A snowball fight ended in the kitchen window above mine getting smashed in, and I was sure the draft had made the whole building a few degrees colder.

The thing that made my particular room stand out was that I had it to myself. The rooms were two bedroom apartments complete with galley kitchens and one tiny bathroom. There were typically four students to a room. But I scored my own. My bed sat by the window, the other bed, which I used to fold my clothes and sort out papers, ran under the window. My dresser was tucked neatly under my bed, and my desk sat at the end of my bed, with my great hulking desktop upon it.

I was thankful I had my own room for many reasons, not the least of which was that, during my freshman year of college, I didn’t have a laptop. I was an English major, and I did all of my writing in my room (after one or two failed attempts at using a computer lab for a change of scenery only to discover that no place on campus was safe from the distractions of the blatantly unstudious).

I did all my writing at that desk, at that computer. To the right of the computer sat my trusty Kindle, which housed my large collection of audiobooks as well as serving as a TV. I watched TV passively and constantly while I did my homework. I’d done it that way the whole semester. I explained it to people like this — having a show or movie I’d seen a thousand times before running while I worked helped me stay focused for longer; it was like the part of my brain that wanted to go play had something to keep it occupied while the rest of my brain stayed in homework land. I have no idea if this is scientific, but it was keeping me sane.

Netflix was pulled up on my Kindle now. And no matter how many times I searched for “The Dick Van Dyke Show,” nothing was showing up. It made no sense. I’d been watching it that morning. Or was it yesterday? Or possibly in the middle of last night?

I felt a tingling heat rising up from the pit forming in my stomach, tickling at my cheeks, prickling tears from my eyes.

It had to be there.