My Own Apartment

After enduring years of living with people that...

• hung their gun club targets in their room
• used their money as psychologically demeaning terrorism
• licked microwaved chicken fat off plates
• played Vox by Sarah McLachlan exclusively on repeat for 2 months straight
• followed me around with a bottle of disinfectant
• let varying colours of mold grow on almost every piece of food they didn't consume
• owned a rat that had a tumor... and then it gnawed it's own tumor off and still wondered around the apartment, festering and diseased
• constantly breaking their bed due to vigorous sex between two rather large individuals that sounded like rhinos trying to kill each other for dominance over their herd
• was not so secretly in love with another roommate, so began a sociopathic hate campaign against anyone else (a.k.a. Me) that befriended said other roommate
• tried to kill themselves
• would spill a quarter of a pound of sugar on the counter and floor and then walk away and leave it
• had "Therapy Thursdays" so we all had to avoid them at all costs after those wonderful sessions
• claimed to have trudged through the swamps in Vietnam with a gun even though she was only nineteen
• spit-shined their boots every morning and wore camouflage... FOR FUN
• blasting gangster rap while chilling in his fitted Ralph Lauren khakis and collared Lacoste shirt
• gave Single White Female a run for the title
• instead of emptying the garbage, they (and this is more than one) would just throw garbage in the general vicinity of the garbage and letting it pile up and fester
• got pregnant but decided NOT to tell her family, because we all know a skinny skank that suddenly wears XL overalls and sweaters is completely subtle and sneaky
• having 3 boyfriends that were not aware of each other and we were expected to keep track of their names
• sleeping with two brothers that DID know about each other (ewww)
• was a cutter
• would lay on the couch and stare at the ceiling for hours and not say a word or fall asleep
• insisted on watching "CSI Whatthefuckever" and then commenting on how inaccurate it all was because they knew everything about forensic science
• almost going postal because I asked whether it was cool or not that we rotated garbage duties
• talking with her boyfriend between the hours of 1am-5am, which sounded like Charlie Brown's mother reverberating through my wall every fucking night
• constantly living in fear of their cat swallowing tinsel and having to pull it out of its ass
• ran a phone sex hotline from their room...

I decided it was time I lived on my own.

The first paycheck in which I earned a relatively acceptable salary, I told the current nut jobs that I would be leaving in 30 days from that moment. And I would NOT be hitting my ass on the door on my way out.

It was a beautiful blue, single dormered two story house in the heart of Greek Town. The ceilings were high and light blasted through skylights in both the kitchen and living room. The walls were white and clean, and the hardwood floors were freshly polished. The smell of varnish and paint filled the tiny apartment, and it made me smile.

It was perfect.
It was all mine.
I could be alone, finally.
Quiet.

And then 3 months after I moved in, the landlords had a baby. Colic.

FUCK. ME.

Locked Out

I was never good with keys, or mainly remembering keys. Of course, this changed once I began driving, but before that, I never really had a key for anything. My house has a push pad entry on the garage.

I never had a key.

This changed when I moved to Australia and lived with host families. The second family, to be more precise. The McFucks.

The war between myself and this family, or rather, their war against me, was well under way, but had not yet reached the vortex. It was brewing. Just under the surface. I was coming home from somewherethefuck. I cannot remember, nor is it particularly relevant, but it was around 9 o'clock at night. Not late.

It was pouring rain, as in, it was a Melbournian down pour of excessive force and volume, and I had forgotten my key. Where were the family McFuck, you ask? They were all sitting in the family room watching television together. The Mrs, the Mister, and THREE of their four adult children that still lived at home. Yes, THAT family.

I didn't feel it was nessessary to ring the doorbell, as their family room was right off the front door. They could see me, just as I could see them. Instead, I just lightly rattled my knuckles against the metal screen door. "Hello! Sorry, I forgot my key."

There was a paused silence and no one seemed to turn their head towards me. Then I heard Mr. McFuck yell from his recliner, "Well then, yew'd best rememba' it next time, now won'tcha? You, missy, need to learn ya lesson!"

What. The. Fuck?

They weren't getting up to let me in? No. No one.

It was raining. Hard. I was wearing a "water resistant" hooded jacket that was proving to be useless under these extreme circumstances. I was soaking. I didn't know what to say or what to do. I should have left; gone to a friend's house, but I was stunned. Frozen.

I turned around like a rusted tin man and sat on the wet cement porch. I could see the water flowing over the steps like a waterfall, but I didn't care. I could feel the cold water seep through my jeans and my underwear. I sat there and cried. It was an angry cry. Tears of hatred burned down my face and then crashed against the running rain water below like hot and cold cymbals.

I was there for over an hour before they let me in.

I don't know if I "learned my lesson" about remembering my keys, but I never again left the house without my fucking umbrella.

The Lion, the Bitch and the Whore Code

The second substantial “non-sexual” crush I had on another girl was in University. (The first being this girl.) When I met her, she was so cool that it intimidated me a little. She was very out-spoken, didn’t take shit from anyone and (until me, of course) everyone knew where they stood with her. She had a lot more balls than I did. Appearance-wise, she was also so funky in my books; slightly bohemian but still stylish and artsy – how I wished I could dress if I could have ever found those clothes in my size. She had dreaded her hair, but it was only just below her shoulders, so they kind of puffed out a little like a lion’s mane. Her face was narrow and pretty, so it didn’t deter from her appeal; she was a sexy lion.

When she asked me to live with her in my 3rd year, needless to say, I was so excited. It was like I was going to be living with the embodiment of my alter-ego.

The first few months were fantastic. Myself, her, and 2 others lived in a townhouse. One was a wild card and a little distant, but the 3 of us were like a Whore-tastic Sorority and we were having the best time. We ate, partied and at tougher times, counselled each other. It was the first time I was living with other women and it was actually going well…

Ah crap… I spoke too soon.

I don’t know what happened, or why this girl who supposedly never bottled up anything, decided to HATE me. I couldn’t figure out what I had done. Did I say something bitchy? Not usually. Maybe she mistook something I said about her art; she wasn’t great at accepting criticism, even constructive. Someone offered the suggestion that she was pissed off that I was moving to Australia, but her behaviour was a bit extreme for that to be the reason. Still to this day, I have no idea why she went psycho on me. I tried to ask the 3rd girl in our once-blissful-trio but she didn’t want to get involved. That bitch was like fucking Switzerland throughout the entire war, and frankly, that hurt too. The Lion was clearly being publicly cruel to me and the Bitch never once stood up for me.

Finally, it was time to move out, thank Christ! I was having a going away pub night and that is when she decided to drive one last knife into my back before I left; she was going to throw a party on the same night, and her parties were legendary. Are we in fucking kindergarten? Seriously! Thankfully, the 4th roommate refused to agree to the plot, and since it was a campus residence, all tenants had to sign off on proposed parties. He had called me and told me; it was gross and as he told me, my stomach ached with anger and heart-break.

Even then, I never had enough kahones to confront her – in person anyway – but I finally told her off in an email. I know she got it because she wanted Switzerland to read it, but in true neutrality, she declined. I always thought that there was some kind of unwritten code amongst kindred spirits about sticking together and being there for each other. In our case, it would have been more like a Whore Code, but I actually like the sound of that – if it had meant anything, anyway.

While I was away, the girl that replaced me ended up TERRORISING HER ten-fold to what she did to me, apparently reducing her to tears on a daily basis; she even started to lose her hair because of the stress.

Oh, here’s me shedding a big fat tear while slurping a cup full of hot irony with whipped karma on top. Mmmmmm, that went down nice and smooth!

A very awkward Christmas

The most, ummm... interesting Christmas that I'd rather forget was the one I had when I was away from my family, when I was overseas for grade 11. It was an odd feeling; an empty feeling. I thought I would feel sad and homesick, but surprisingly, I didn’t feel either. I guess it didn’t help (or did help, depending on one’s perspective) that I was living with a family I completely despised (McFucks) – so it wasn’t like I was surrounded by references and reminders of love and gooey family togetherness. It was also bizarre that it was 32degrees outside and we were having a BBQ, so it didn't really 'feel' like Christmas either.

I did my duty and remained at their house for as long as was required of me. Astonishingly, this family actually had some friends and they came over. I had to remain for that visit to ‘keep up appearances’ or some bullshit logic like that. So yes, they got to show off their little pet project with uncomfortable small talk and boring conversation; I had to do a lot of fake smiling and lying – I would have hoped that they at least appreciated my acting abilities, but I doubt it.

Once their painfully dull friends left, I asked if I could be excused to go to my friend’s Christmas party. They were done with me, so the father gave me a grunt, which I understood as a reluctant ‘yes’. Friggin’ finally!

I got to the party a lot later than I originally thought, but they were all happy to see me – at last I was with some friendly faces; it was a relief. My boyfriend came in from the back porch and gave me a big groping hug and sloppy kiss that stunk of beer, but I really didn’t mind… that time.

After I had a chance to mingle and get a few drinks into me I was feeling much better and was getting more into a Christmas-y mood. Further into the night, the drinks kept coming and both myself and my boyfriend were getting ‘in the mood’.

We loaned his friend’s sister’s bedroom for the night, as the rest of his family were away at the beach for Christmas eve. My boyfriend brought in a couple bows to try and stick to my nipples, but it didn't work that great. He had suggested trying the 69 position earlier that evening, as he had done on numerous occasions before, but I wasn’t too sure. We did like trying new things together, but I don’t know – something about a guy’s chode in my face didn’t do much for me, nor if I was on top, I didn’t see how my ass in his face would be a particularly sexy angle for me – I didn’t have many of those to begin with, gimmie a break! Perhaps it was the generosity of the Christmas spirit flowing through me, but that night I finally said, “What the hell; let’s try it.”

I could tell straight away that he was super excited. After some initial fooling around he gave me a little whistle of approval and swung his leg over my head and started going down on me, upside down. OK, so that was feeling great, of course… but yep, there it was – his big harry chode (the area between nuts and asshole – watch Jackass and you’ll learn all about the chode), ass crack and all other bits waving in my face. It totally wasn’t sexy at all and I was so relieved it wasn’t me on top. It was really hard for me not to laugh… really, really hard. My previous thoughts on this position were bang on.

There was a definite tug-of-war with my thought processes and senses whilst in this position – I was surely enjoying the pleasure, but then I would have to snap out of it and perform head on him… upside down and in the reverse angle, so as not to bend it backwards and break the damn thing. I could see how having me on top would be a lot easier for me to perform my end of the deal, for sure. Upside down & backwards blow jobs are not an easy feat!

This sums up my first 69 in a nutshell:
Oh, pleasure. Ugh, annoying. Oh, pleasure. Ugh, annoying… and so on and so forth.

Finally, he had turned around, put a condom on and we finished the ‘traditional’ way. While we were lying on the bed afterwards, he looked over at me and proclaimed, “You know, I really love you.” That was the first time he said that, and continued by saying that being with me made it his best Christmas ever. Uh, ok… and I really like you a lot… too. Yikes! That was the best I could give him that night, or any other night after that. He was one of the VERY few that I actually DIDN’T fall in love with – just my luck! At least I can say Christmas that year was abundant in awkward moments… and positions.

Happy Fuckin' New Year (Part B)

The climax at the house of horrors occurred after New Year’s Eve. I had returned home from spending it with friends and Burt was suspiciously in a good mood and wanted to know about my night. “Did you have a fun New Year’s Eve?” he questioned me with a smile.

“Yes, it was great, thank you.”

He continued, still smiling, “Did you toast in the New Year with some bubbly?”

Of course, I got absolutely shit-faced, but since drinking was against the rules, I would have never revealed that detail, yet still I stupidly replied, “Just a sip, ya know, for the toast.”

His smile instantly turned into an angry frown. “That’s it! You have crossed the final line!” (I was trying to think of the other lines I skipped to get to this final one.) “You are going to be on the next plane home! I am calling your counsellor right now!” It was so utterly bizarre that I wasn’t sure what just happened; it was like entrapment by Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde. Margaret had the most despicable smirk on her face, as if watching her husband try and ruin my life turned her on. Luckily, my counsellor was amazing and was quick to extinguish the fire on that phone call. I could tell that Burt’s lack of power to have me sent home annoyed him to the greatest extent. He looked up at me and ended with, “You are grounded until further notice!”

About 2 long weeks had gone by – being grounded during school holidays was torture in that house, especially when Margaret was there ALL-THE-TIME, ready to degrade me whenever it suited her needs. I actually began to develop suicidal thoughts after awhile. I felt like those 4 months would never end and it would be easier to just kill myself. All I did was get up, eat, check the mailbox, and then go to my room to lay on my bed and stare at the ceiling; I had way too much time to think and I went a little nuts.

Did I mention it was my 17th birthday? Right... it didn't exist, really. Apart from my parents calling, I spent it in my room. My boyfriend delivered flower to the house, which was sweet, but I'm sure that was some kind of punishable offence as well.

After the third week, the student that had gone to my school back home (and became one of my good friends), was arriving home – which happened to be about 2 hours from where I was staying. I mentioned to Margaret that my friend was coming home and she actually sat down with me and helped me plan out how I was to get to my friend’s town. It was probably the only time Margaret ever showed interest in anything I did.

The morning came when I was to go; I had gotten ready early and was on my way out the door when Margaret cut me off. “WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?”

“To my friend’s welcome home party; it’s today.”

Her triple chin wobbled like a rooster as she yelled at me, “I never said you could ‘actually’ go! Get back to your room! You aren’t going anywhere today!”

WHAT THE FUCK? This woman was seriously sociopathic! I honestly thought that she must suffer from split personality disorder, or something! I couldn’t explain why she got off on being so evil to me. Something inside me snapped that moment. I didn’t get to go see my friend that day, but I did run out of the house and down the street. I could her Margaret yelling at me to get back in the house. She was so furious that her warbling voice was cracking. I needed to breathe fresh air. My heart was pounding and I couldn’t remember ever experiencing such anger and detest for anyone or anything before; it was over-whelming. It must have been a panic attack. After about 10 minutes of pacing around the block, I was able to calm down enough to return back to the house and go to my room. Margaret must have heard me return, as I slammed the door as hard as I possibly could, but she never came after me again... that day.

The week after that, school started and the last few weeks of my sentence with them went a lot quicker. When they delivered me to my next family, I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. The new family offered them to stay for a coffee and my eyes widened in panic. Luckily, they declined and if was up to me, I would have never seen the pair of those fucked up people ever again in my entire life.

The drama with them didn’t end that day, however. Their vendetta against me continued long after I had left their house. Why? Where their lives that pathetic? Apparently so! When I was away on a school trip, they had gone behind my counsellor’s back and called an emergency meeting with the Board. They told the Board that I was a dangerous person that tried to stab them with a knife and threw furniture at them! I’m not exaggerating – these were real people! My counsellor had revealed all this drama to me after I returned from my trip. Luckily, only the two of them were insane, and the Board didn’t believe them, nor did they appreciate their sneaky methods by going over my counsellor’s head, but still – what was wrong with these people?!

I had to see Burt every week at the club meetings, but I only ever saw Margaret once more. It was at a dinner function and usually she was very calculated at hiding her true nature in public, but I guess she hated me so much that she slipped up this time. I was sitting at a circular table with 7 other adults from the club when she came over and forcefully flicked some letters right at my face - trying to physically hurt me with paper. With a tone of repugnance, she simply snarled, “Here’s your mail!” Everyone’s jaws at the table dropped in silence. FINALLY! It took her own doing, but finally there was proof (apart from the hearsay sobbing of a 16 year old) that this woman was deranged.

Sometimes I think that having to live with them was karma punishing me for falling in love with my host-brother at my previous house. Does it work that way? Who knows! What I did know was that no one knew about my relationship with Jim – not even my counsellor (at that point), so I still had no explanation as to why this certifiably insane couple agreed to take me in. I was going to mail them some pamphlets on schizophrenia as a joke, but I chickened out. I told my counsellor that what was done was done, but that he had to promise me that they would NEVER be allowed to host another student, NOT FUCKING EVER! He undoubtedly agreed.

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Re-posted for Wicked Wednesdays, Dec 29, 2010

A 4 Month Sentence (Part A)

They were technically my host-parents, but having the word ‘parent’ in the title is insulting to my real parents, and even the term ‘housemate’ implies that they were my friends; let’s just say they were people that I had the extreme misfortune of cohabitating with for the longest 4 months of my life. The husband, Burt, was of a medium build with bushy everything; his hair was so full it looked like an ill-fitted wig and his eyebrows and moustache appeared to be 3 giant hairy caterpillars that were devouring his face. Margaret was about 5 foot nothing in both directions – almost perfectly round – with a hooked nose and beady eyes. Even to look at them wasn’t a pleasurable experience.

The first thing they showed me was a framed photograph of a previous student that they had taken in a few years prior. They almost salivated when talking about her and pointing to the photo on the wall. It was particularly odd since I knew they had 4 grown children – to which none of them owned any photographic real estate on their walls. I should have known right then that I was never going to live up to this apparently perfect girl they had live with them previously. It was downhill from the moment I walked through the door.

The strange part was that I hadn’t even done anything to trigger the hatred that was focused upon me, except for being Canadian, apparently. Burt hated all things American – and to him, I was guilty by association. (Why they hell would you agree to take in a student from a part of the world you hate in the first place?!) I wasn’t allowed to watch anything on TV that was American, which didn’t really leave much to watch apart from ‘Neighbours’ and the Cricket. I think even hearing my accent angered him, because he would snap at me and cut me off mid-sentence whenever he got the chance. The ironic part was that he was the nicer one of the pair!

Margaret was the one that was home the most, and the one I would unfortunately have to go to for permission to do anything. After a few verbally abusive confrontations early on in my stay (for things as simple as asking for a ride to my basketball game), I quickly learned that I needed to give them at least 3-4 days notice if I required anything from them. Knowing that, this one instance I did give the allotted 4 days notice and it still wasn’t enough. Margaret huffed and grunted the entire way to the car, muttering angry things under her breath just enough that I couldn’t decipher it. After she squeezed herself into the car and we were about ½ way to the gym, I realized I miscalculated and was 5 cents short for my admission fee... 5 CENTS! Oh crap! I dreaded having to ask her, but I had no other choice.

“FIRST YOU MAKE ME DRIVE YOU ALL THE WAY TO YOUR GAME AND NOW YOU WANT ME TO GIVE YOU MONEY? WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? YOU THINK THE WHOLE DAMN WORLD REVOLVES AROUND YOU, MISSY, BUT IT DOESN’T! YOU ARE THE MOST SELFISH, UNGRATEFUL GIRL I HAVE EVER MET AND YOU DISGUST ME!”

I started to cry and I knew she was taking pleasure in that. She violently rummaged into her purse when we arrived at the sports’ complex and threw a 5 cent piece at my face. In defence, I turned my face away so it would hit my cheek and it fell to my lap. Can you believe it? I even said, “Thank you!”

There were parts of their home life that were fucked up long before I came around as well. The fridge was full of food that was all labelled as to whom it belonged to – even the fruit! Shockingly (sarcasm), nothing ever had my name on it. The only thing I was allowed to eat was what was put on my plate. I made the catastrophic mistake of drinking one of Margaret’s diet sodas one day – and she made me go and buy SIX to replace the ONE I drank.

I was stuck with this family during the worst part of the year – which included Christmas, New Years and my birthday. It was so depressing! I missed my mom so much! I shared a room with their second youngest daughter, who was 23, and she was a complete mental case as well – a whole other story! During the holidays, I spent as much time as possible at friends’ homes. One night I forgot my house key and although 4 of them were sitting in the living room watching TV, they made me sit on the porch for 2 hours to ‘teach me a lesson’; it was pouring rain.

to be continued...

Single White Female

During my first year at University, I lived with a menagerie of unique people but the cherry on top of the crazy cake was a sad and strange girl by the name of Candice. When we first met her, it was even apparent from her posture and awkward body language that she was far away from her comfort zone. It is true that we were all experiencing a new chapter in our lives as we begun our first couple days of University, but with Candice, it was an entirely new world. She didn’t really respond to normal social graces like the rest of us, and by the end of the first week, we jokingly came to the conclusion that she must have either had absolutely no friends in high school or she was, in fact, born yesterday.

I know that appearances are not important, but I feel I should at least give a brief description in order to paint a virtual picture of this girl. She had a body like none I had seen before; if I were to do an elementary outline of her, it would resemble a square skillet with a handle. Her legs were average, along with her arse but then from nowhere the upper part of her body transformed into a giant block – the same width and height. It was as if her jeans would have been a size 8/10 and her tops were a 16/18 – with no waist whatsoever. Her head was then positioned directly on top of this block of a torso with no neck either. Although she was naturally a blonde (I think), she had further bleached her hair to the point that it was scorched into a frizzy straw-like mop. Finally, she suffered from Rosacea that created almost perfect blotches on her cheeks that made her look like a permanently painted marionette – and this only worsened when she got embarrassed or upset.

When she arrived, it was like she had done research on what a “University student” should have or should do – maybe she watched a combination of Saved By The Bell: The College Years and Sex and the City – who knows. The first thing she did was to take out a Pink Floyd poster and put in on the wall in the common room. When we were done with all our different tastes, it was as if the walls were covered in a mishmash of pop culture vomit, so the Pink Floyd poster fit in just fine. She also broke out her “grannie smokes” or “bitch sticks” (super light and slim cigarettes) and awkwardly lit one; it was as if it was the first one she’d ever had. When the coffee had brewed, she added at least 3 heaping spoons of sugar (I lost count after 3) and milk.

Now, most of this might not seem too unusual, except shortly after, it all began to change. It had been about a month when a group of us were hanging out in the common area, smoking and listening to the radio. “Money” came on and one of the guys turned to Candice and mentioned, “Hey, you must love this song!”

She looked confused and replied, “Why?”

He then equally looked confused and answered, “Um... because it’s Pink Floyd? Aren’t they your favourite band?”

Her red blotches quickly erupted as she got flustered, “Oh, ya, r-right... of course.” I could tell right away that she had no fucking clue that it was a Pink Floyd song... the most FAMOUS one as well. I don’t know shit about that band, and even I knew that song. We eventually learned that she bought the poster because of some guy that worked with her dad had a Pink Floyd tattoo – and then after more digging, we learned that he was like FORTY and also married. Eww. Weird.

We were only able to get this information because she had taken a shine to one of our other housemates – to put it lightly – and had begun to reveal herself in all her glorious weirdness. This other housemate was very bubbly, pretty and friendly with everyone and I think she was the first person that ever showed Candice any form of comradery in her life. She began to follow Andrea around like a little puppy dog. She switched to the same brand of strong cigarettes as her, and started drinking her coffee black – just like Andrea. Now, if you have ever had coffee, you will know that switching from triple sugar and milk to black is HUGE; I shudder at the thought.


Andrea wasn’t without her own issues, and she pretty much ate nothing but microwave popcorn – so Candice also changed her diet... during the day, anyway. At night, usually after Andrea had gone to bed, she would binge eat as if she was a starving, savage animal. It was disturbing to watch – especially when she would actually lick the leftover chicken fat right off her plate! She never even noticed us or cared that we stared at her in horror while she engaged in one of these scoff n’ snort fests.

She also dyed her parched hair a darker golden blonde... surprise... to be more like Andrea’s colour. It then turned up a further degree of creepiness when she openly started to develop a crush on the same guy as Andrea – as if she and Andrea fused into one person. The transformation happened faster than we could say “Single White Female”!

By the Christmas break, it was obvious that Andrea had a serious stalker issue on her hands, but she was too nice to do anything about it. Sometimes, we often thought that she actually enjoyed having a “pet” – a certifiable pet, but a pet none the less. Candice started to become openly rude with the rest of us. We gathered it was because we were also friends with Andrea – and the time that we spent with her interfered with her special one-on-one time where she could have Andrea all to herself.

One afternoon, she had brought home 3 targets. Apparently, she had gone to the gun range with her father and those targets were her results. Um... so... what do you think she did with them? She friggin’ hung them over her friggin’ bed! We joked that when her door was closed, she put one of our faces on each of the 3 targets – but in reality we were getting nervous. For the first time that year, we started to lock our bedroom doors at night. If we ever wanted to go out for drinks with Andrea, we would plan to leave separately and meet up in the parking lot – so she wouldn’t know that we were going together – and Andrea would feed her some bullshit about having to run errands so she wouldn’t want to go with her. It was immature of us, but since we were all afraid of confronting her (especially since she had a gun club membership), we just did what was easiest.

We danced around her obsession for the remainder of the year and soon exams distracted us with more important things. We kept locking our doors at night and definitely looked forward to getting away from her – but not as much as Andrea was, I’m sure of it. Oddly enough, Candice was from the same small town as that fucked up guy that always came over to our place to take a shit! Coincidence? I’m thinking a big fat NO! (See No Coffee? No Cigarettes? No Entry!)

No Coffee? No Cigarettes? No Entry!

In our first year at University, we lived in a townhouse-style complex for students. During the first week, everyone gets along and tries to make nice, and then soon after, culling the herd quickly begins. Even though we filled out lengthy personality questionnaires in an attempt to place us with “similarly-minded” people, instead, they succeeded in placing the 6 most opposite girls to live together in a house. Through the chaos, back-stabbing, anger and tears, there was one thing that we remained united on, and that was the total creepiness of a guy that frequented our place.

At first, he would just come over to ‘hang-out’, which he then rapidly started growing roots directly from his ass and into our couch. None of us liked him; there was something not-quite-right about him. Even when we all went to bed, he remained; having ignored all the not-so-subtle hints about him getting the hell out of our house. We were never brave enough to just come out and say it either. Then, he progressed to staying at our place at all hours, helping himself to our coffee, and smoking all of our cigarettes.

So, OK, now he seemed like a typical mooch, right? Well, not exactly. After about 2 long months of this, the next stage of his comfort level kicked in. He would come in to our house without knocking, give a quick wave to whoever was in the common area, “Hey!” And then go straight upstairs for about 10 minutes. We thought that was weird enough in itself, but it took us about 3 or 4 times of this occurrence to finally figure out what he was doing... He was coming over to our place JUST TO TAKE A SHIT and then (depending on whether or not he had class), he would take off right after, leaving nothing behind but a lingering stench and streak marks in our toilet. What a fucking weirdo!

Since bodily functions are always a sensitive topic for most people, especially us North Americans, we decided to focus on the coffee and cigarette factor. The guys’ house next door also had a problem with this guy, but men are much more forward about these situations; they told him to get the fuck out, and then chased him down the street with a broken beer bottle! In true feminine form, instead of confronting him, we posted a note on our front door that said, “No Coffee? No Cigarettes? No Entry!”

Well, of course, the first time he came to the door and read the sign, he went totally mad! It was kind of terrifying. He was yelling incoherently and occasionally we heard phrases like, “I’m too stressed to deal with this!” and “My mom is on strike, you know!” (She was a teacher, and the strike only lasted 3 weeks; we weren’t talking about the fucking Miners’ Strike of ’84 or anything.) But he mostly directed his insane ranting in the direction of his ACTUAL home, and he stormed away. He was probably busting to take a crap and couldn’t stick around to argue with us.

The Dirty Princess

I had my share of conflicts with a couple girls in high school; I wasn’t sheltered into thinking that everyone can be your friend, if you just get to know them. Screw that; it’s a fairytale. Some people just aren’t meant to get along... but nothing had prepared me for Dannie. She was the ultimate caricature of a bitch that teen dramas based their main antagonist on, but Dannie was actually real... and we had to live with her. I would also need to mention her utter lack of morals in the promiscuity department as well. I know I wasn’t exactly a saint either, but she crossed lines that I wouldn’t even think to go near.

She took every opportunity to remind us that she was better than us, mainly due to her parent’s money, but other reasons were applied as required. Some things that came out of her mouth were SO bitchy, I thought sometimes she had to have been joking... but she wasn’t! The deviousness in her method was that she would mostly do it in front of other people, notably guys. If there was no one around to impress or witness her debasing one of us, she was as sweet as a rotten candy apple. We had nicknamed her “Princess”, mainly because it was easier to say than “Psycho Dirty Fucking Bitch Hose Bag”. Here are a couple choice conversations I had with her:

“How much was that watch?” She said with a slight under-tone of disgust, as if she was about to vomit, and then stuck her wrist in my face. “This one was like 400 bucks, like it?”

“Are you still eating an entire can of beans in one sitting?” Then, she turned to the guy that was there and continued (as if I was no longer in the room), “One of those cans takes me, like, 3 days to eat!”

And my personal favourite: “I know YOU couldn’t wear something like this, but how does it look on me?” She tauntingly asked while twirling around in a short, slutty dress.

Dannie’s paradox existed in her ‘environmental hygiene’. She NEVER cleaned up after herself, to the point where fuzzy mold would grow on most of her dirty dishes; and she had a putrid pet rat that she would put out in the hall every night. In the morning, the hall would be littered with wood shavings and rat shit, and she never once attempted to clean it up. Waking up to rat shit was just fantastic first thing in the morning. Gross!

Finally, we had had enough. I piled all the rat crap and moldy dishes and made an impressive mountain in front of her door. She cleaned it up, but never confronted us about it. And she never took a hint from it either; the next week was just as bad as the last. She must have called her mother about it and performed some sob story about how we were so awful to her, and how she was the fragile victim. Boo- Fucking-Hooo! We assumed that because about 2 weeks later, her mother came back to the house with her on that Sunday night. We were all in the main common area when the two of them arrived and proceeded directly up to her room (with zero acknowledgements that we were there). What? No hello? No kisses?

Then, all we heard was her mother gasp loudly and her voice filled with utter horror, “NO WONDER THEY PILE YOUR CRAP IN FRONT OF YOUR DOOR – THIS IS DISGUSTING! I WOULD HATE YOU AS A ROOMMATE TOO. YOU WEREN’T RAISED TO LIVE LIKE THIS. CLEAN THIS SHIT UP NOW!”

As she walked out the front door, she gave us a quick wave, “Sorry ladies!” It was a small consolation.

Welcome to Crazytown

In my second year of University, I had started fresh with new housemates. I had made friends with the one girl and her boyfriend during the previous year. I had never met the 4th person before, but was told that she is really cool, and just has a couple issues. OK, no worries, we all have issues, right? WRONG. Talk about skimming over the details and false fucking “housemate-vertising”. She was a complete mental case, as in certifiably committable! The first thing she said to me was, and I quote:

“Hi. I’m Kayla. I’m on some pretty heavy bi-polar medication that has given me a nasty case of insomnia; I hope I don’t keep you up. Oh, and Wednesday mornings are when I go to my shrink, so I’m usually in a foul mood for the rest of the day. If I were you, I’d stay out of my way on Wednesdays.”

What...the...fuck...? I guess that was my official welcome speech to Crazytown! There were so many weird run-ins with this girl that they all melted into a single puddle of insanity. Surprisingly, the whole “we try to keep chemicals and sharp objects hidden from her” thing, I actually got used to, as warped as that might sound. It was her insomnia that sent me over the edge. The entire night (usually from 11pm to 5am) her television reverberated off the wall that we shared – Wo wuh wa wa wuh wa wuh wa... Sometimes I could kind of make out what she was watching, like the distinctive base-plucks of the Law & Order music, but on the most part, it was that horribly muffled conversational crap. Ear-plugs were useless; it vibrated through the floor as well. It was like my personalized version of Chinese water-drip torture.

After 3 months, I couldn’t take it anymore. I started arguing with the other 2 people in the house as well, but only because I was so damn exhausted. It was affecting my friendships, my school, and my health. I wasn’t going to last the year. We decided it would be best that I switch houses when the semester was up. I knew 2 of the girls that I was going to be living with next, and was looking forward to the change... and the sleep! We were also getting a 4th new person placed with us that none of us knew. During move-in day, she was already seated on the couch when I arrived... in a full cadet’s uniform and spit-shining her boots. I tried to make conversation, “Oh wow, so you’re in Cadets? Do you have training today?”

“Nope, I just loooove wearing it. It’s a constant reminder of the awesome feeling ya like get; like when yer sifting in a 4 foot deep swamp with your arms high in the air, tryin’ to keep yer gun dry!”

She was only 20 fucking years old; does she think she fought in Vietnam or something? It was at that very moment that I knew I was housemate cursed; and that was only the mid-way point. I still had 2 more years after that which totalled no less than a sex phone operator, an O.C.D. cleaner, an anorexic, 2 drug dealers, a nymphomaniac, a Black supremacist, a completely neurotic male and a “cutter” (as in a girl who cut herself to feel pain)! I decided to live by myself after that.

On a side note, Kayla actually did attempt suicide a few months later. She survived, but was in a coma for a few weeks. I know it seems selfish, but I felt SO fortunate it wasn’t me that found her. I didn’t need any more issues, thanks, I was all stocked up.