As my fellow housemates exited the co-op, the visceral strains in my abdomen directed me to the toilet. I found myself with a spinning head, vomiting over the john with the thunderous alarm continuing to blare.

After a final dry heave, I opened the bathroom door to witness a fully garbed East Lansing fireman trotting through the hallway.

“Everybody out,” he said authoritatively and in seconds I stood shivering outside in the numbing cold wearing only boxers and a T-shirt.

My fellow housemates and I, a bedraggled lot, ruefully huddled together for warmth.

Needless to say, there was no fire – there never is. Perhaps a burnt pizza in the oven, someone fiddling with the fuse box or a few too many lit cigarettes in one room, but never a real fire.

Fire alarm evacuations are just one of the many quirks that go along with living in a co-op here at MSU. MSU Student Housing Cooperative consists of 194 members living in 12 different co-ops, each with a unique name (e.g. Vlach-Bower, Raft Hill and David Bowie Memorial). There also are three independent co-ops in East Lansing.

When the student body discusses co-ops in the letters to the editor the arguments are usually pretty elementary. Those not fond of co-ops regard them as grimy residences occupied by indolent hippies and those who live in co-ops promote them as utopian bastions of diversity and fellowship.

But viewing co-ops at face value, they really aren’t much more than big houses with 20-odd college students trying to make ends meet.

The beauty of co-ops lies in this collective struggle to pull it all together while squeezing the most enjoyment out of your college experience. If you can withstand the fire alarms, abysmal central heating and capricious personalities who inhabit these establishments you might just have the best time of your life.

Whether it’s feeling the floor boards quiver beneath you during a rock show at Vesta, buying a keg cup to which the proceeds fund Ron Paul at Hedrick or partying with cast members from Cirque Du Soleil at my very own Avalon, the experiences you garner living at a co-op are perfectly and decidedly collegiate.

If you were any older, the living would be too rowdy and unpredictable. If you were any younger, most things just wouldn’t be legal.

There are more comfortable ways to live, but you have the rest of your life to be comfortable.

Despite what friends at Chandler Crossings tell you, college students don’t need apartments with furnishings akin to the Pottery Barn with Ralph Lauren towels draped neatly in the bathroom.

The truth of the matter is that when it’s sink or swim with a houseful of college youth, you’re going to end up doing a lot more than just treading water. Misadventures abound but the important part is that adventures take place.

When bumping your grandchildren on your knee, you’ll have no dearth of lurid tales and tantalizing anecdotes to mesmerize their young minds.

Co-op people will shove organic produce down your throat, make your bike a “fixie,” kiss you on the cheek and tell you communal living saves the earth. But none of that matters. Living at a co-op is essentially a trip and there has never been a better time to take one.

John Hudson is the State News multimedia reporter. He can be reached at hudson28@msu.edu.