Roommate Drama

I was listening to the radio this morning and people were calling in talking about their horrible roommates. One girl is upset that her roommate brings random guys home all the time. One guy’s roommate leaves his toenail clippings on the armchair. Another “disaster roommate doesn’t do his dishes and always steals the last poptart. Gasp

You know what I have to say about that? Boo freakin’ hoo. Wanna talk about challenging roommates?

For the last 16 months I’ve had a roommate. He moved in, and even slept in the same room as me for the first 6 months. To be honest, there were some nights I even brought him into my bed, even though I swore I was never going to be one of “those.”

Right away I noticed he was pretty needy, and that he wasn’t contributing much around the house. He would leave his clothes all over the place, and his hygiene wasn’t the best. I mean, this guy would literally puke on himself and not blink an eye. But I looked beyond his weird quirks, unpredictable sleeping habits and reluctance to get a job.

As time progressed, he became increasingly more fun, and we would do things together. We would go to the park, run errands, go to the library, hang out with his friends (which was always an adventure, by the way. I think they were drunk or something because they all wobbled around and fell a lot, and you could never understand anything they were saying.)

And although we’ve had a lot of great times, he’s just not grasping some of the standard cultural norms or etiquette. For example, he insists that I wake up when he wakes up, which is at 5:00am on the dot. When he wakes up, he insists we watch Lion King.

Every. Single. Morning.

On any given morning, he may spill the bowl of milk and cereal I just poured for him onto the floor and he never offers to clean it up. As I’m cleaning it up, he will bang incessantly on my computer, losing my work or posting an incoherent Facebook status on my behalf. I’m not sure what his deal is with animals, but he is constantly chasing them around the house, and sometimes pulling their tails! I told him we had dogs the day he moved in and he didn’t say anything about it, so I didn’t think it was an issue.

He volunteers to go EVERYWHERE with me. And sometimes I think about saying no, but I worry about what chaos he will cause if I leave him home alone, so I bring him along. When we go to the grocery store, he likes to throw things out of the cart. When we go to the library, he likes to pull the books off of the shelf. When we go visit one of MY friends (who don’t stumble around or talk mumbo jumbo… just sayin) he’ll find the only breakable thing in their house, or bang their remotes on the table as loud as he can. He seems to do better in outdoor environments, so we try to frequent different parks as often as possible. He is an excellent climber, a very fast runner and can hide in crevices I could never fit into. Action and athletics are his thing, for sure. You could describe him as NON STOP.

And don’t even get me started on taking him out to restaurants. We literally have to order his drinks with lids because he spills everything. And he likes to play with knives, and climb on the table and throw crayons. Yeah, it’s that bad. He wants to get down in the middle of dinner, or stick his hand in a steaming hot plate of food like he doesn’t know it’s going to burn him. I swear he has no concept of table manners. And when he’s ready to go, it’s time to go. Patience is not his thing.

Other things that aren’t necessarily his thing: listening, following directions, using his words to communicate what he is feeling, knowing how to use the toilet, feeding himself and common sense.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a long process preparing for him to move in, and I was excited about it from day one. I do love having him here, and if he wants to stay for the next 17 years, I’m good with that. And although he has his annoying quirks, he can be very loveable and sweet, and he’s definitely grown on me. He can be funny and entertaining, and without even trying he makes me laugh every single day.

I guess I’ll keep him around. Being his roommate can be a challenge, but everyone has had those challenging roommates, and it makes for a great story years down the road. If I could say one thing to the girl calling the radio station ranting about how her roommate steals her clothes, it would be “Lady, one day you might have a roommate who pukes on all of your clothes multiple times throughout the day, without even a hint of regret. Let the dang girl wear your clothes. It’s not that bad.”

As for my roommate, I wouldn’t trade his messy, loud, energy draining self for the world. If we could just work on this little habit of throwing things across the room, that’d be great.