Rage From the Edge

Roommates


That last article about Jeremy reminded me that I have had some champion roommates. I may be the world’s worst person to live with, but I can say with a hint of pride that some of the people I have lived with are giving me a run for my money.

Being a bum, drunk, college kid, live-in boyfriend, and a general waste of life allows you to see and experience things that a normal person who follows the “family plan” just don’t get to see. I am not saying that a lot of people don’t get to share in some of the experiences I have had, but I am saying that maybe they didn’t enjoy them (for some reason) with such relish as I did. I don’t want to sound like I am looking down on people who (seem) to have a normal life (house, garage, two kids) . In fact, I am envious of them at times. They don’t have to put up with the crap I have had to put up with. Then again, I wouldn’t trade the past in for anything…unless it was a large sum of money or a book contract or both; even though that doesn’t really happen.

Anyways, here is a list of some of my all time favorite roommates:

·Alexandra - a girl I live with when I first moved out on my own. She was a hippy and she wore patchouli oil all the time. When I came to my senses, I moved out. Later, after she discovered that I had moved out, she filed charges on me stating that I had stolen my own things from the apartment. She never even showed up to court. Charges dropped, I never saw her again.

·Christine – I lived with this girl while I lived with Alex (above). I think I saw her a total of five times in the entire year I lived in that apartment. She worked a lot.

·Lance – The psycho OCD pharmacy student. Actually, he was trying to get into medical school but failed miserably, so he went to pharmacy college. He couldn’t stand himself or anybody around him. Nonetheless, he was very funny and was good to have around in a fight. He killed himself a few years ago.

·Andy – This guy was a winner. He lived with Lance and I for a while until we got sick of his bullshit and kicked him out. He never paid any bills and he never paid for any of the household items. Lance and I got it into our heads that we were going to lock up the toiletries so that he would have go and buy his own. He then used coffee filters to wipe his ass after taking a dump. He is a cop now.

·Liam – When Liam moved in, so did his girlfriend unofficially. They were never apart and I think they are still married now. Liam was a drummer. He had all the prerequisite percussion accoutrements all over the house. This didn’t bother me very much because he was a great roommate. His girlfriend, on the other hand, was a total pain in the ass. She once destroyed our bathroom in a drunken fit of rage that involved vomit and a very large purse.

·Chris – This guy was a recovering heroin user. Recovering my ass.

·Derek – See Chris above. Also, Derek was a dealer…but I didn’t know that until our house was broken into and a safe that was hidden in Derek’s closet was thrown down the steps by the burglars. Total cost of damages to the house while Derek lived there: $2300.00. The last time I saw this guy, he was working for a compressed gas company; loading trucks.

·Brandon – Brandon was a pretty good roommate. He was never around and when he did show up, he was always cleaning. He was kind of creepy though because he insisted on having a padlock on his room’s door. Brandon lives in California now and helps run his father’s dry cleaning business.

·Tricia – Tricia was the daughter of a very rich man and also a girlfriend for a while. She was rather odd, but it never got in the way of being a good roommate. The problem here was that she never paid her bills and her rent would back up for six months. Because I was sleeping with her, she felt that I should pay…and I did. After a year of this going on, she moved out and her dad shows up a few weeks later with a check for all the money she owed me. The check bounced and she now lives on the other side of town in a house her father purchased for her.

·Debbie – Debbie was Tricia’s best friend who needed a place to stay. She moved in a few weeks after Tricia moved out, effectively killing their friendship and effectively killing the check that Tricia’s father wrote for me.

This list is by no means the complete list. Jeremy got a whole chapter to himself. There were several other roommates that don’t make the list because I cannot remember their names or they didn’t live with me long enough to do something really stupid that I can remember. Some of them actually did some really dastardly or stupid things, but since they were around for such a short stretch of time, they don’t really belong in my hall of fame. Perhaps they are in somebody else’s.