On the Subject of Roommates

As far back as I can remember I have always had roommates.  Not necessarily other people living inside my room, but that’s happened too.  Weather it was my family as a kid, students in college or military school (another subject in and of itself), fellow felons during that year I spent in county jail (Orange County CA can still blow me over that one) or my lovely fiancé (by far the best roommate ever)I’ve always had company.  Roommates are becoming more popular as our economy dwindles toward the seemly endless downward spiral, of the economic toil bowl.  I for one, never enjoyed living alone anyway, and feel karma owes me a great deal of good brownie points for paying someone else’s mortgage.  On the most fundamental level, let’s take a look at a scenario involving me with the pad to myself for a weekend.

At first I rejoice.  “At last, those bastards have left for the weekend”.  I then proceed to reward myself.  After all, I did go through all the trouble of being a senseless asshole day in day out, for weeks on end.  So I grab a 12 pack of Sierra Nevada, or some other such fine ale from the local liquor store.  Of coursewhat’s’ a little pale ale without 1/8 onceof some chronic (my mother stillaffectionately calls it grass.  The only things worse to call it would be dope, because real dope is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT SUBSTANCE AND BALL GAME).  Between my first 6 beers and my first gram, a feeling of peace settles in.  A sense of pride and hopefulness.  “I choose my own destiny, I choose my own life, I am a man, and I choose hamburger helper again for lunch.”  Silence fills the room, it’s just me and the hamburger mitten guy on the box, and I can feel him eyefucking me.  This has gone far enough I think to myself.  I weight my options.  On one hand, hamburger man is feeding me, on the other, he’s hurting my feelings.

“You sure you know how to cook that?” Thehamburger man mocks me in tone of arrogance and disgust.

“Silence you hamburger fucker” I snap out of it, only to find myself alone with a tennis racket, a head full of alcohol, and smeared casserole from wall to wall.  This is when the depressionstarts; Ineglect chores, continue to drink irresponsibly,smoke cigarettesin thehouse, get stuck on Law and Order SVU marathons, proceed to curse Ice–T for being a sell out cop killa gone, what the fuck, COP?  I then become inspired by Law and Order SVU, “Mariskha Haggerty must be the anti Christ who covets the secret to immortality and eternal youth, because she is the only bone able198 year old who still walks this wretched foul earth.  At this point I abandon beer for Tequila, and marijuana for methamphetamine.  I proceed to break into my elderly neighbor’s house in the hopes that a spontaneous  consummation of love can lead me to the elusive and esoteric non-haggard Haggerty secret. I hide in her closet, wearing a diaper, a flannel, and a ski mask, chain smoking and talking to the stuffed animals, only to discover that at the height of my altered state of extreme paranoia, loneliness and drug frenzy, I had broke into the wrong house, and had but a horrified and baffled Asian family staring at me in horror, complete confusion, and dare I say it, SHAME (the hallmark of traditional Asian negativity) as a reward for my endeavors.  After calling a bail bondsman, I filled out the paperwork for the restraining order, and had no choice but to take a look at this anti-social behavior.  Is this a far fetched story, your humble narrator thinks not.  Personally, I like being around people (even if they are big fucking shitheads) for the sake of my mental health.  So let’s take a look at a few times when being surrounded by people was still bad for my mental health.

                The K.B. house, Dana Point, CA- I responded to an add in the local penny saver.  I was previously living with my father and his newly wed Pilipino mail-order bride.  As I had mentioned before, I have a phobia about being alone.  My dad and my step mom/sister (she was only 3 years older then me) had gone somewhere on a trip, most likely their honeymoon, or perhaps TGI Fridays.  I invited all my friends over and promptly started drinking for 112 consecutive hours.  My dad said he’d be back Sunday night.  He lied, and when he entered the house that Sunday morning, promptly kicked everyone out of the house just like the actor who played the grandpa on that Snoop Dog video,Jin and juice (so old school, but if you remember the video, your probably old).  I knew I was fucked by the color of the big pulsing vein that turned blood red on his bald forehead.  If the vein was greenish blue, I was good, but chicken yellow or blood red pretty much meant a beating.  So, it was time for me to leave, and that’s when I found the K.B. house.

                The house was more of a dungeon; it was a poorly reconstructed cookie cutter type townhouse.  The downstairs where I lived was completely soundproofed, had a drum kit, amps, and was perfect for my jazz band at the time to rehearse in.  3 other tenets lived there too.  Phil, my roommate downstairs, looked kind of like Joe Zawenal from the jazz funk fusion band Weather Report, but with salt and pepper hair.  Phil was in his 40s, but because he chain smoked camel filters since he was 4, he looked well into his 60s.  Phil led a simple life.  He went to work, came home, smoked weed, drank only Corona (Mexican piss beer, don’t believe me, try a Bohemia or Negro model you uncultured American yuppie) and only watched movies filmed before 1984, and Star Trek the Next Generation ( there is nothing more disturbing then someone laughing out load and  saying “Oh that Warf, what’s he goanna do next?” [Take off his fucking make up and find a new agent I hope]).

The roommates upstairs I didn’t see as much.  Budra (sp?) was a white guy (I think) who grew up in India, was a computer programmer of sorts, and played percussion instruments.  He was a big fucking tool.  The one I really didn’t like was, Anthony.  Anthony looked like an ill conceived charachture of Timothy Leary.  Standing at an intimidating 5 foot 2 and ½ (which is shorter then even me and the only time I am tall is when I’m at an Asian club) he was with out a doubt, the biggest superficial lame I have ever met in my life.  Anthony (definitely a W.A.S.P. or white AngloSaxon protestant) had long blond hair that he tied around his head in a bun and liked to wear tradionaly Indian clothes, which on a white man looks a lot like he’s wearing a woman’s dress.  He was a manager at Taco Loco, a stoner taco joint in Laguna Beach on Pacific Coast Highway, which is world famous for its grossly overpriced, and just plain gross hemp burgers.   He was not of Indian culture in anyway shape or form.  He was just a poser.   He also went down to the local Denny’s every Sunday just so he could have this underage Indian girl serve him.  He did this for at least 4 years, until she graduated high school, moved on to college, and promptly forgot about the worlds most pathetic angry hippie.  I do admire perseverance in a man, but after being rejected over and over again for the first 2 years, one could only wonder if this man had a set of balls, or even knew what a vagina looked like.  If I held up a mop, and doughnut, and a vagina, would he be able to tell the difference?

At this time I was in college studying music.  Everynight, without fail, I would invite friends and guests over.  Some of them were musicians, some of them dealers, some of them were hot chicks,and some of them were fat chicks with big tits.  We all made noise until I passed out, or got lucky and kicked everyone out.  Anthony’s room was literally right above mine.  I was under the impression that he too liked to stay up, entertain guests, get crazy, and have a good time.  What I didn’t realize at the time, was that since he had his heart set on the Denny’s waitress girl, he wasn’t getting any pussy at all.  His resentment toward me started slowly.  On one occasion I met a girl named Ava at the local Liquor store.  She was buying tampons and I was buying a pack of cigarettes.  A little bit of flirting, and she was in her car following me to the dungeon.  We started drinking wild turkey, so I set the mood I popped in Miles Davis’s, Miles Runs the Voodoo down on the Bitches Brew album.  My fingers ran down her body, into her pants, our lips made contact.  Yes, I was in I thought to myself, when suddenly, from above the ceiling in my room, you could hear what sounded like a caged Rhino stomping around upstairs. “Maybe he’s out of weed” I said to Ava.   Oh how wrong I was.  

Anthony’s voice rivaled that of a shriek from a banshee getting kicked in the balls, while simultaneously reading an official IRS audit form.  He then yelled, “I hate insensitive roommates that don’t care about other people’s schedules”.  So do I Anthony, so do I.

It was only 1am and I knew Anthony didn’t have to work until 2pm.  Was this not unreasonable behavior I thought to my self.  What’s wrong with meeting a semi intoxicated random hotchick, whose magic words are FREE WILD TURKEY AT MY HOUES.  I had an inkling about the truth, and what Anthony was really trying to say was “I miss being young, and having a life.  I wish I had more to offer the world besides tacos, a shitty attitude, a bunch of bullshit and the same story’s about being cool in high school.  Why don’t people like me?  Is it because of my pseudo intellectual left wing just quoting Al Gore and Michal Moore superficial no original thoughts of my own attitude?  Is it because everyone knows I smell like hamster feed, bong water and tacos?  Or is it simply the fact that everyone is totally creeped out that I’ve been hitting on the same girl (and no, girl is not a euphemism for hot woman, in this case) for 4 straight years now and my social skills match that of a homeschooled 2^nd grader with an advanced case of Turrets’ syndrome?

                Regardless of Anthony’s reasoning, I cared very little for his antics and even less for his opinion.  So I did what any man would do it my situation with a concerned roommate on the floor above me, and  proceeded to fuck the shit out of Ava.   The sex was not very memorable, because she was not a particularly interesting lay.  However, I will never forget her.Take note readers, a skanky harlot will use many tactics to take advantage of you, but sex with the lights out eventually leads to surprises with the lights on. I’ve heard of “The Red Badge of Courage” but I deserve the fucking Medal of Valor, because it looked like enough period blood to fill the body of a small sized rodent, perhaps an Albino Jumbo Sized Rat.  To her credit, her period blood didn’t smell rancid but yet it’s diametric opposite of a light fragrance of cranberries.  Despite this fact, my white Jaco Pastorius t-shirt would be ruined forever. 

This type of behavior continued until my 22^nd birthday, when my friends and I decided that drinking a gallon of rum and reenacting the WWF summer slam series of 1994 would be the next fun thing to do.  We had consumed  three and a half bottles of cheap tequila, two supreme pizzas from Little Slezzers, and inhaled an entire tank of nitrous oxide between five people (its commonly called Hippie Crack).  It was under the influence of this genius juice that John (a good friend we will meet in future stories) conceived this event. At that moment it was the Ultimate Warrior vs. Brutice the Barber Beefcake (I know who the fuck was that?).  I was (trying to at least) refereeing.  The front door to the K.B. house was wide open for ventilation.  The K.B. house stood on a hillside over looking the Dana Point Harbor, and the main road, Golden Lantern.  Needless to say the event eventually made its way into the street around 1130pm on a Saturday night.  Although the neighbors and all motorists appreciated the unusual spectacle at 1130pm, my roommates and Orange County Sheriffs department didn’t (by that comment I mean Anthony who was the lease holder).  A few days later the relationship was dissolved, and so I packed my bags and started couch surfing.

Human beings are social in nature.  Apparently an experiment was done after WWII, dubbed “The London Baby experiment”.  100 English orphan newborns and 100 German orphan newborns were used.  All newborns received the essentials, food, clothing, warmth, diaper changing, etc.  The German newborns were never held, loved, or showed any human interaction.  All the German newborns died.  Getting along with people can be a challenge sometimes, and barriers are thrown up, towels are thrown in, and typically I throw up.  Even now I don’t have the worlds perfect living arrangements.  Although my fiancé makes the world’s greatest roommate (that physically shares the same room with me ;>) the other house mate type people make life uncomfortable, and just plain kind of suck.  In my current situation I live with a neurotic house wife who doesn’t speak English, and likes to compulsively spot clean her kitchen with bleach everyday (and makes a big deal about it too).  She is rewarded for her endeavors by being visitedby cockroaches and silver fish every night.  The art of diplomacy is not lost but yet muted in today’s 21^stcentury of isolationism through smart phone, video games, 3D T.V, and designer drugs society.

I could ramble on about this one for another 4 pages but I will give my readers a chance to stand up, stretch, eat something, smoke something, or whatever the fuck it is that you do.  If your living arrangements yield more the 63.54% happiness, you only fight on average 1 time per week, you get to eat at least 3/4ths of your grocery’s, you don’t receive knocks on your door at 1030pm on a weeknight by the State Parole Department, you can masturbate in private, you don’t come home to find any one of your positions worth more the $59.99 completely damaged or destroyed, the keys to your car are where you left them more the 90% of the time,  AND NO ONE EVER PISSES IN THE DISHWASHER FOR ANY REASON WHAT SO EVER (YES THAT DID HAPPEN TO ME), then consider your self in decent standing, grateful and lucky, because there are a myriad of worse places you could be, and tons of worse company to get stuck with(and don’t worry, your fearless and crazy narrator has been there and will wright about it), so take a minute and be happy and appreciate what you have.  As for anyone reading  this who can honestly say “I’m having that experience as we speak”, then MOVE THE FUCK OUT BEFORE ITS TOO LATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!