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Cups

22 Apr

Last night as I unloaded my dishwasher I was reminded of when the roommate [from hell] used to hoard all the cups in the house. He’d fill them with Coke because that’s the only beverage he’d ever drink besides beer or any sort of alcohol. The cups would them get lost in the vast abysses of his room where the contents of the cup would dry up and crystallize. Sometimes he’d eat Chips Ahoy cookies and have a cup of milk to wash it down. He must not have liked the Chips Ahoy and Coca Cola combination.

There would be days when I’d go looking for a cup, lo and behold not a single glass could be found. Then randomly, I’d open the dishwasher and all the glasses would be in there with the rotten milk, mold, sugar, and whatever other kind of science project he had going on. This became increasingly frustrating because we have a rather cheap, not-so hardworking dishwasher. So I would have to remove all of the cups from the dishwasher, soak them in hot, soapy water and then scrub out the nauseating cheese formations. Then they’d have to go back in the dishwasher for a final sanitation. Truth is, knowing what once grew in some of those cups or perhaps the fact that the roommate [from hell] used the cup, I’d usually opt for a paper cup anyway.

Get this! The roommate [from hell]‘s former, roommate, previous to me, ran into a close friend of mine. This former roommate mentioned to my friend a few of the awful habits of the roommate [from hell] and one of them happened to be about the cups! I would be really interested to know if this same epidemic is occuring at the roommate [from hell]‘s current place of residence.

Actually, I don’t care.

Roommate Diaries

24 Mar

If you’ve read the Deodorant Bandit you know that recently a long tenured roommate of mine moved out. In talking with others, it turns out I’m not the only one whose encountered a roomie from hell. Given this commonalty with others, I’ve been inspired to write the Roommate Diaries. Consider this Chapter 1, titled Towels.

The smell of mold would often lurk on my clean towels. I’d bring a fresh towel to my face after a shower and launch it across the room as if I was a quarterback and my career was dependent upon this throw. Here’s why: my super thoughtful roommate [from hell] thought it was okay to take my clean, wet laundry out of the washer and set it on top of the dryer to mold. Here’s a nice tip for anyone out there who doesn’t already know this. If you take out wet clothes from the washing machine, promptly put them in the dryer and turn the dryer on. Be sure to set the dryer long enough so the clothes, towels or whatever dries completely. Other times, the roommate [from hell] would take out clothes that were drying in the dryer and put them on top of the dryer to mold. The roommate [from hell] would “iron” his outfit of the day in the dryer everyday! Tree huggers, brace yourselves for what I am about to divulge. Not only would he mold out my laundry and cause me to have to re-run the washer and then the dryer and use another scoop of laundry detergent and bleach to kill the mold, but he’d also run the dryer for a single pair of pants and shirt everyday for at least 45 minutes! Needless to say, the situation was Green in a mold sort of way, not Green in an energy conservation way. I’m relieved my towels are fresh the first time around and can’t wait to see how low the energy and water bill will be next month.

Re: Deodorant Bandit

18 Mar

Sooooooo I never confronted the Deodorant Bandit. I thought about it, but never did. I actually never want to see the guy again. I always try to look at the positive in everything – well not everything, but most things. From now on when I meet a new friend or run into an old friend I’m going to share the story of the Deodorant Bandit. Then they’ll never forget about me. They’ll think about the pervert who molested my innocent, 1.6 ounce antiperspirant every time they swipe their underarm with their deodorant. To me this is more satisfying than confirming the truth. We all know who did it anyway.

The Deodorant Bandit

3 Mar

The brand of deodorant I wear and have worn for years is Secret. Turns out, my Secret is not much of a secret at all!It all started two weeks ago. It was a typical morning: reluctantly get out of bed, turn on the shower, get in the shower, dry off, put on clothes, brush teeth, put on deodorant…wait, what’s that on my deodorant? Two large hairs? Ewww, two men’s armpit hairs? Uh gross, okay, but I still need the stuff, so I plucked the hairs out of the deodorant, mumbled to K-Man that there were two gross hairs in my deodorant, put the stuff on and went on with my morning.

Saturday morning, K-Man was getting ready and he noticed that my deodorant was “Spanish Rose” scent.

He picked the stuff up to smell the Spanish Rose because if you know anything about K-Man, you know that he smells everything and anything. After opening my deodorant, he quickly ran over to me to show me that another man hair was in my deodorant. We were both 1) grossed out and, 2) puzzled. I looked closer at the deodorant. It looked as though whoever was putting the stuff on did so aggressively. There was deodorant stuck to the outside of the bottle like it had been left in a hot car, melted and ran down the sides. Then I remembered on Friday morning when I put my deodorant on, I had to click a few times to push the stuff up because I prefer a nice rounded head on my deodorant for an even application. If the stuff isn’t pushed up, you end up just scraping away at your armpit. The fact that I had taken the time to make sure it was rounded and even checked after applying to make sure it was still rounded and then finding the stuff all “roughed up”, marked with someone’s DNA in the form of a course piece of hair, I knew we had an intruder on our hands.

As thoughts were racing through my mind about who was using my deodorant, I remembered a recent episode of Oprah that I watched. A younger woman had a feeling that someone had been in her home when she wasn’t there. She put a shirt behind her door when she left to work that morning and sure enough when she returned, the shirt had been moved. Then she set up a camera. After viewing the film, it revealed that a man came into her apartment, smelled her lingerie, tried on her lingerie and did other very unpleasant things in her home with her things.

At this point I’ve convinced myself that someone broke in through our balcony on the second floor. Our neighborhood is having its roofs redone and we are also undergoing a decking project. Which means at anytime a worker could be climbing on a roof or deck. I think if I saw a man climbing a ladder to check out someone’s deck, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash because I know that the neighborhood is having work done.

I checked out my balcony for clues and didn’t find any. I noticed the hand rail around the balcony was covered in dusty dirt from the latest rain storm. Only a few paw prints from the neighbor’s cat were evident. And it’s near impossible to unlock our French doors from the outside.

There is also a balcony off Sister B and Dummy’s rooms. Ironically, it was Dummy’s moving day. I’ll have to share more about him later. Then it occurred to me that Dummy never locked his slider door. I tried it out and it was unlocked and ready to be opened. My theory about a worker climbing up a ladder could be what happened! I checked around the balcony and the clues I thought were clues were not really clues, but I was still convinced someone from the outside was coming into our house.

While mulling through ideas of how this stranger got in, we realized that our front door gets left unlocked from time to time (thanks a lot DUMMY!). So, any old stranger could have knocked on the door, received no answer, could have walked right in, up the stairs, fumbled through my chaotic drawer of toiletries in the bathroom, bypassed the 5 other men’s deodorants in there and proceeded to mess up my meticulously rounded head of Spanish Rose.

Also thrown into the mix was Dummy has lost his keys before, has given friends and now enemies his keys, and he gave his entire set of keys to the car repair shop who had his keys overnight. Dummy lacks the most discernible logic. His Frontal Lobe is non-existent and I’m not a brain surgeon, but I think that even if a person has to have a frontal lobe to be alive, well then Dummy’s resembles a raisin.

Today, the house is minus one occupant. The deadbolt was changed last night and all the doors are locked, including the slider that just as well could have displayed a neon “open” sign.

I have a sneaking suspicion that we can leave the neon sign on because I think the deodorant bandit was on the inside. This opens a whole other can of worms. To be continued…

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