Yay! Roommate stories!
When Morelin and I moved down to the great state of Georgia…and can I say that one of the few times I watch C-Span is when they start doing that…“The Chairman recognizes the Senator from the Great State of North Dakota” “The Senator from the Great State of North Dakota yields to the Senator from the Great State of New Jersey.” It just rules.
Anyway, when we moved to the Great State of Georgia, we moved in with a friend of mine that I knew from my time in college. She’d had a room in her apartment, we needed a place to stay, so we moved in. She was a little weird, kinda eccentric, but that’s par for the course. Things went along fine for several months…until she broke up with her boyfriend. I don’t know if that was related and triggered something, or if it’s just a handy marker of time…but she went from being pretty good to live with to “OH GOD WE’RE SO MOVING!”
Bills which were usually paid in a decent amount of time disappeared for months until they threatened to cut off the power/water/whatever, then I’d find them under our door with a little note saying, “I can’t pay this right now. Can you?” And then I’d have to shell out $200 for three months of power plus late fees and other add-ons. Without even an “I’m sorry” or explanation of some kind. And you bet your ass I never saw her share of it in the last few months. This REALLY pissed me off, because Morelin and I were splitting a box of Rice-A-Roni as dinner, because we were trying to stay within our means.
Fine, some people have money management problems and I like to think I’m understanding. However…
When you’re spending $10 a day on lunch (just lunch!) at Boston Market and slipping bills under my door…When you’re going out every night and spending tons on alcohol (and how do I know that? Because a co-worker of ours said, “What?! She’s not paying her bills?! But I see her out drinking every night, spending tons of money!”)…When you’re inviting strange people to sleep on the couch in the living room (it’s disconcerting to wander out at 4 in the morning and find a dude sleeping in your apartment) without telling anyone or leaving a note or whatever…When you lose a job at Smoothie King (SMOOTHIE KING!) because you’re giving out free large drinks(!!) to everyone who asks, then try to insult my intelligence and tell me “I got laid off!” Especially when you got fired from your last job because you can’t get anywhere on time. Not just 5 to 10 minutes late, 3 or 4 hours late because your ethic is “Well, I’m already running late, so it won’t matter if I go shopping, take my cat to the vet, etc.”…When, for a change from Boston Market, you go to the counter at Publix and get one of those jumbo $7 sandwiches every day, and I’m not knocking people who do it, I’m knocking people who do it while sticking me with “Pay us $200 or we’re going to cut your power off!” bills…When MY food disappears because all you buy for the house is Slim-Fast…When you don’t take your trash out for months on end, resulting in little flies everywhere…When you stink so badly that on the one time I gave you a ride, it took a month for the scent, YOUR DISGUSTING SCENT, to get out of my car…When you somehow manage to make the house smell like garlic and onions (and friends, I cook with garlic and onions and I’ve NEVER stunk up the house for weeks on end)…When you stink SO BAD that one time when you go out of town for a few days, we air the place out and it smells fine, and then 15 minutes after you get back, it smells terrible again…When you ignore your cat so much, he’ll hide in our room and won’t want to leave (and it kills me, cause this cat ruled. He was so much fun to play with, sweet, he’d pounce your head, he used the litterbox regularly.) when you call him and we seriously considered taking him with us, but the $300 pet deposit was too much on top of the moving expenses, deposits for utilities, etc…When you invite tons of people over and allow smoking in a non-smoking apartment where I, who am supporting your lazy ass, have problems with cigarette smoke and don’t tell us “There are going to be tons of people over!” when we’re trying to sleep, cause we get up before God (4am!) to go to work…When we pay our chunk of the rent seperately because we don’t trust you to get your ass to the office and write a check…
Well, friend, you just lose my compassion. Cause here’s my philosophy: “Don’t spend too much damn money and you’ll be fine.” And here’s another one: “When I have to shell out large sums of money on a regular basis because Smoothie King is too damn difficult for you, you damn well better not take my food, you Boston Market eating bitch! Especially when I’m eating a bagel for lunch!”
So we quietly arranged to get out of our lease, found a new place with a decent rent in a decent neighborhood, and moved. She just happened to be gone that day, so I imagine she came home to find us gone and was in quite a spot. I still imagine the look on her face when she swung open the door to our bedroom and found all our stuff–and us–gone without so much as a note.
Ha ha! Fuck her.
