...until you live with them. It's such a cliche, but so true. Although the story I'm about to tell you happened almost 14 years ago, the retelling of it makes me feel like I'm right back there in the summer of 1998. In July of that year my younger brother was graduating from basic training as a Marine, so I took a trip down South to go with my family to his graduation. Before leaving the apartment for my trip, I closed my bedroom door. Off I went to enjoy some family time, secure in the belief that everything would be the way that I left it when I got home.
Boy, was I wrong! First of all, on the cab ride home I was thinking about the fact that I had strawberry Pop-Tarts, and I was looking forward to having one. Get home, go in the kitchen, no Pop-Tarts. Ask my roommate if she's seen my Pop-Tarts and her response was "My mom must've eaten them." I'm thinking "Your mom?" Apparently her parents were in town while I was gone, and they stayed in the apartment, rather than booking a room in a hotel. Supposedly they slept in her room, while she and her clubbing buddy slept in mine. Strike one: My Pop-Tarts are gone.
I go into my bedroom to unpack my stuff and notice that there are keys on my bed. Here we go again. Back to my roommate's room to ask her about the keys. Her response was "Oh those must be Paul's keys. We watched a movie in your room the other night, and he must've left them there." What? They watched a movie in my room? Strike two: My roommate and some dude were rolling around on my bed.
Putting stuff away in my closet I noticed that my bathrobe wasn't hanging inside on the door. Why do I have to keep asking this girl about my shit? Off I go to her room yet again. Ask her if she's seen my bathrobe. She asks what color it is, and when I tell her, she informs me that her mother slept in it while she was there. Apparently she thought it belonged to freeloader girl. You remember freeloader girl from my previous post, right? The million dollar question is: How would her mom even know about the existence of that robe unless she was in my room while she was visiting? That pretty much tells me that this chick's parents slept in my bed. Strike three: Some woman I don't even know is sleeping in my robe.
After that, I really had very little to do with this girl because I was raised to respect other people's property and to not touch something that isn't mine without permission. Where I'm from, a closed bedroom door when someone isn't home means "Do Not Enter". Invasion of privacy, anyone?
Unfortunately, at this point in my life I wasn't assertive enough to voice my disgust at all that had transpired while I was gone.
How right you are! Everybody has a terrible roomie tale. For TW, it was a woman who invited every touring rock band( and their groupies and hangers-ons) she knew to stay in their apartment (TW lost a lot of records that way.), never helped with the housework and stuck TW with a $700 phone bill, when she was finally evicted. Like yourself, TW wasn't assertive enough to evict her so since the apartment was in her name, she moved out and the landlord had to evict the roomie. That was a great apartment, too. Sorry you had to live through that experience. TW wouldn't like someone sleeping in her bed and wearing her clothes either.
ReplyDeleteI just lived with HH most of my life so I had a good experience then, but I did live with one puppy who kept eating all my food and his. I was nice and slim back then, but I was also hungry and very glad when HH rescued me.
ReplyDeleteHave a great day.
Max
I never had a roomie, except husband. he he - but I established rules as we went along. Most of us were not raised to be assertive, unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteThere are really such people and I salute you for your temper. If I was you, it would've been a different story
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