08 January 2007

Cohabitation, or The Things My Roommates Do That Are Wacko, And Sometimes Marginally Rude


Our roommates are really bizarre. I guess with the wheat of the awesome loft comes the chaff of the two wackjobs that inhabit it. Here is a partial list of the obnoxious things they have done since I moved in. Hopefully this will let off steam so I don't blow up at them one day and lose my wonderful place to live.

1. When I create a wet laundry jungle in my room to avoid using the dryer (and by extension the weird cardboard thingamajig that they fashioned to hold the dryer hose out the window, which incidentally lets in gales of cold outside air), ask me why I didn't simply use the dryer.
(1.5. Cardboard? Stuffed in the window next to the gas stove? Which you have to stand on to insert? Are you kidding?)
2. When I use the dryer, pull a long face at me and complain that there's a cold draft and that I shouldn't use the dryer. Hmm, I didn't see you so upset about the cold when it was our room that had no heat. Which brings me to...
3. Realize around mid-October that there is no heater in our room. Our room with the twelve-foot-high factory windows. Order a heater from Japan that will come next week, I promise. Meanwhile, an Arctic front moves in.
4. Receive heater a month later. Realize that a key piece is missing. Order piece from Japan, that will come within a few days, I promise. Don't offer any extra blankets. Finally receive piece in mid-December, after I have reinforced my stock of wool sweaters and have become resigned to wearing double layers of socks to bed.
5. Quit job in August. Piss around all day on the computer, downloading porn. (I have proof.) Complain about money. Sleep till four pm. Buy a new laptop. Transfer porn to laptop. Arrange a "study" area upstairs and pretend to study, but download more porn. (Okay, no proof on that one, but really, wouldn't you feel justified in suspecting?) Talk about rehabbing upstairs, but only move a bunch of junk around.
6. Regularly ask us for rent a day before it's due, and before you calculate utilities. Get mad when we don't produce check on the spot.
7. Work four days a week at two crap jobs, and complain that it's "simply too exhausting to work on Fridays." Complain again about money.
8. Pry into our personal lives.
9. The only time I answer the house phone, during which I take a message and relay the message accurately, coldly tell me, "Don't ever answer the phone again."
10. The day I move in (bringing my MO apartment furniture with me, fully expecting to get a place of our own relatively soon and not wanting to move cross country twice), tell me, "Um, didn't you know that this place was furnished?" Simultaneously, hide piles of broken junk in the massive storage space upstairs. Make me feel like consumerist crap for having a complete set of nice furniture.
11. Make me put all my things in storage upstairs, then rearrange storage so I can't get to them.
12. When we throw out a lamp with broken wiring, chase us down the hall and retrieve it, saying, "Well, maybe I can fix this," and relegate it to the storage pile. See item 10.
13. Talk to Frenchy while he's watching football. Really, even I learned this one years ago.
14. Completely fill freezer so I can't store any food larger than a single fish fillet.
15. Taunt me as materialistic for putting my name on my food, then eat my ice cream.
16. When I go to the massive storage space upstairs (now turned into a putative "bar exam study area") to get a sweater from a box that is still up there, follow me and insinuate that I am not allowed upstairs.

I'm sure I will add more as they happen, and as I un-represss memories. When it gets too bad, I just have to remind myself of the view. It's nearly the same from our bedroom window. Life isn't all that bad, is it?

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