Living With It

In the 10 years since I moved out of my parents house, I have shared rooms, dorms and apartments with a variety of interesting people. Most have been close friends, and though there are obviously ups and downs in every living situation, I can honestly say that living among close friends has been, for the most part, a joy.

But living with strangers and random acquantances...That can be a different story. Just tonight, a guy I barely know who moved in here two months ago after meeting my former roommate Nathan on Craig's List moved out of the apartment. Tomorrow, two new guys will move in.

So get a load of this...This dude, who we'll call Mr. E, because that letter's in his name, he finishes moving out while I'm at work. I get home, he's already gone. Whatever, that's fine. Like I said, it's not like I had a chance to get really close to the guy. He only lived here two months. (Plus, he was weird. Sometimes, I'd walk by his room at night and he'd be listening to 80's power ballads and singing in a really high falsetto over the track.)

Anyway, I get home, there's no note or anything. The only way I know he's gone for good is that he left his key buried under some envelopes. And he left the sink full of dirty dishes, almost all of which were covered in his cooking.

I'd like you to stop and consider this for a moment. It means the guy made sure to wash and pack up all the cookware that might have belonged to him, leaving everything else dirty in the sink despite the fact that he had been the last one to use it all.

What a dick. I mean, I know that we'll probably never see one another again or communicate in any way, so he can basically burn me consequence-free...but why be that guy? Why be the guy who screws over former roommates just because he can? It sucks to be that guy.

Not to mention the fact that, the other day, he clogged up the garbage disposal for the second time since he's lived here. He was always shoving inappropriate items into the garbage disposal. Once, we caught him sticking whole orange peels in there.

"Mr. E, why would you do that?"

"It's good for the garbage disposal," he replied. "Keeps it clean."

Yeah, he was an idiot. So, anyway, these guys are going to move in tomorrow to a place with a broken garbage disposal, which I realize is lame. But it's too late to back on now...We've got rent due in a few days.

And now that I'm reminiscing about my short-term roommate Mr. E, I'm reminded of the oddest dude with whom I've ever shared living quarters...

A. Butt

I don't want to give out his first name, because if this dude ever Googles himself, I don't want him to be able to track me down. But his first name started with A and his last name was really, actually "Butt," spelled like your ass.

Why would you keep this as your last name? It's probably the worst last name of all time. It doesn't matter what your first name is, if your last name is "Butt," you have a really funny name. Guaranteed. But having your first initial be "A" just makes it that much worse. Change your name to anything, dude. Oscar P. Worcester. Roderick Quincy Finklestein. Baron von Skelderbergingfitzenhughdouchebucket III. Anything but A. Butt.

And he was a total weirdo as well. I mean, just a strange, doofusy kind of guy. He used to write really bad rap songs where he'd make up all his own slang, which made no sense. So he'd rap for you, and half the time you'd be thinking about how funny it was that this unbelievably white-bread dork was rapping, and the other half of the time you'd be trying to puzzle out what he was saying because it was wall-to-wall nonsense.

Anyway, just a real wacko. I guess it was a good experience, right away at college, getting to know a crazy guy. Preparation for all the other crazy people you'll be forced to live around and on top of for the next several years.