I’m looking back at a journal entry from November 10, 2005 right now. “Someone I can't stand is really starting to get on my nerves... And I might have to stab them.” A direct quote. The room definitely reeks now. Still, I try to extend that olive branch. We still hang out, go to the movies, you know, things friends do but inside the rage is growing. Her family is paying 100 percent for her education; she has not attended a class since God knows when. And she gets mad at me and the other housemates when we suggest she act like a college junior – you know, bathe, clean, learn, things of that nature. She threatens that she will move out, find another place where her housemates will let her be. I keep my fingers crossed.
Have I mentioned yet that she might be retarded? We went to Albany once and she gasped as we drove in, stating that she thought the only city in the state was New York City. She, at age 20, had never been out of her home state. She had to do a project for her science class that involved her drawing a map of the northeastern states and she wasn’t sure what went where. When we finally goaded her into mopping, she just poured bleach on the floor and pushed it around with a mop. I’m pretty sure I used words she had never heard before in everyday conversation. This stupidity plays into the climax of this story.
December 14, 2005 journal entry: “A certain thorn in my side will no longer be annoying me, as of Friday. Halle-fucking-lujah. I was seriously gonna stababitch.” Heifer requested a housing transfer and got it. A happy day! But a smelly one. As were most days with her in our room.
When finals finally wrapped up (she, of course, didn’t go to any of hers) she started packing and I was more than eager to help but pretended to be sad to see her go. As she was clearing the things out from under the bed, I hear her say “Oh, my God, I forgot this was back here.” That’s never a good phrase to hear unless that something is a present for yours truly. She crawls her fat ass out from under the bed with one of my coffee mugs.
(Warning: the following is not for those with weak stomachs.) The stench in the room has grown exponentially at this point. In her hands is a coffee mug overgrown with mold. I’m thinking that it’s just food she forgot about but no, it’s worse. She explains that back in September, her period came early and rather than immediately wash her underwear, she did what her grandmother had told her to do, which was soak the underwear in hot water and soap first. A normal woman would’ve probably done this in a container large enough to actually hold her underwear. Nope, Heifer put it in the mug.
And not only did she put in the mug – my mug, dammit – she put it under her bed so she “wouldn’t forget about it.” Yeah, that’s where I put important things when they should be at the forefront of my thoughts. Over the course of the semester it got pushed back so that it was sitting directly next to the baseboard heater. So it spawned life. And a horrible, horrible smell.
Heifer was kind of flippant about the whole thing, simply pulling the underwear out of the mug and into the garbage. She did offer to wash the mug for me; I said, no, thanks, just toss it. She shrugged, apparently surprised I didn’t want to keep my cup. The second she was officially gone, I threw open the windows (even though it was about 12 degrees) and Lysol-ed everything. I cleaned her half of the room for a solid three days, and, a month later when I got my new (awesome, showering, boundary-respecting, not half-retarded) roommate, she said she noticed a hint of something in the air. I told her this story. She might have thrown up a little in her mouth.
So I feel Pissed Off Roommate’s pain, I truly do. I empathize, but more than that, I sympathize, because I, at least, had another room to stay in most of the time. Pissy, however, is stuck. Stay strong, Pissy, because karma will come back to bite Fatass in his fat ass.
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