Roommates are a fact of daily life for ONEin3ers. Almost 3/4 of us rent, and a good chunk of that live with other young people.
I’ve had my share of roommates over the years, although none through Craig’s List. It’s been a mostly great ride and I’ve come away with some close friends.
BUT, I also have some epic stories of lost clothes, early morning kitchen noises, late night loudness, slurpy eating and much more.
Tomorrow I’ll be writing about some of the more substantive aspects of renting, but for now I thought I’d tell you a tale of woe from my roommate past.
Leave your tales of woe in the comments.
At a time in the not too distant past, I had a roommate whom I will call Stan. Stan was taller and bigger than me. My clothes did not fit him. But Stan had a problem: he just couldn’t manage to get his clothes to and from the laundromat or dry cleaner.
Stan was always running out of stuff to wear to work. Naturally his solution was to raid my closet or our other roommate’s. I used to come home on a regular basis to find shirts that had been clean earlier in the day hanging in the closet with the sleeves rolled up. I mean, Stan, really?
So one Friday morning in the Spring I had literally one clean shirt left and I double checked it before I took a shower because I was worried about it. “Ok, there’s my white shirt and gray pants combo. I’m good to go.”
I went downstairs, took a shower, ate some breakfast and returned to find that my white shirt and gray pants were gone. I raged. I threw things. I went in my dirty laundry and ironed a dirty shirt and wore it to work. I thought about what I would say all day, ready to pounce the second Stan walked in the door.
But when I walked in the door (out of a driving rain storm), Stan was there looking fresh as a daisy with an outfit entirely owned by him. I thought I was losing my mind. I said nothing.
Months passed and Stan moved out. That fall, we decided it was time to clean out the downstairs closet. Guess what we found!
Deep in the back in a moldy old Whole Foods grocery bag were my gray pants and white shirt. They were hopelessly wrinkled and covered in black mold.
It seems Stan got soaked in that rainstorm and managed to stuff my clothes in the bag all wet before I got home.
There’s my story and believe me, there are more where that came from.
Now let’s hear yours!
