Crazy Room Mates

It's been a really long time since the last post, but frankly things have been really quite as of late. I'll try to get back into the groove over the holidays, but no promises. Hopefully when the semester starts back up there will be all sorts of new, funny things for me to tell you. Till then, let's begin with a post about crazy room mates.

*Disclaimer* This post is in no way an indictment of my room mate. He is one of the sanest people I know, and I'm thankful every day that I get to live with him. If the reverse is true or not, I have no way of knowing.

We're like these guys, but without the gay vibe.

Since I've never had a crazy room mate (eccentric at best) I figured I should share some stories about crazy room mates that I've known through friends, as well as one or two of the oddities that my otherwise sane room mates might have. Hopefully you will chuckle a bit, either because you've been through these things, or because you just think it's funny.

First off, we'll begin with the incident that inspired me to write this post. A good friend of mine lives in an apartment with three other girls. What she didn't know upon moving in was that one of the girls is apparently bat-shit crazy. Now, when I say "girl" I really mean fifty three year old menopausal, unemployed ex-Marine. She also has a history of violence, mental instability and a mild drinking problem.

Less cats; more knives, booze, and pills.

This old lady was already in the apartment before the three younger girls moved in, apparently all alone because the previous room mates had "complained about her, not gotten along with her and made her really angry". That happens right?

Warning sign? Possibly.

So yes, perhaps this was something that could have been foreseen... Oh wait! I forgot to mention that my friend does card readings (kind of like Tarot cards, but with regular cards, not reliable, but creepily accurate at times), and she wanted to see if the old lady would stay. The cards said that she would not stay, and that it would be a big deal, with lots of strife.

"Miss Cleo say run! That bitch is crazy!"

When I was visiting, I went out with the three younger girls and some of their friends. We went to a nice restaurant, then a hookah bar. My friend and I left the bar early, and stopped by a graduation party that one of my friends was throwing. We got back to her apartment around 1:30 in the morning, and were the first ones back to what turned out to be the scene of the crime.

As she went to put her leftovers in the fridge, we notice that there was trash all over the kitchen, and the chocolate chip pancakes that we had cooked earlier were all over the floor. Turning into the living room, the furniture was disheveled, with the couch leaning up against a chair lying on it's side by the door. A pot of cooking oil had been splashed all over the floor, and the curtains and rod had been ripped off the wall.

It was either robbers, or a really big puppy.

As we noticed that the room seemed to have been ransacked, we quickly checked my friend's room, but it was still securely locked. Going back out to the living room we began to see oddities that had escaped our attention earlier. For one, the television and wireless router were still sitting right where they should be. So it was probably not a robbery.

Even stranger though, the small Christmas tree that had been by the window was missing. There had been a jar of red and green M&M's that was now empty except for one lonely green M&M. The festive candle sets on the kitchen counter were gone, along with a miniature nativity scene. All this pointed to one obvious culprit.

Jim Carrey, or Jane Lynch. Both work.

But seriously though, it was the crazy old lady. My friend tried calling her other room mates, but they didn't pick up for some reason. We took photos, and then went to her room and called the room mates again, and they finally picked up. They came home quickly, and a quick council of war was called with all the friends. We tried knocking on crazy lady's door, but she was unresponsive except for one "yeah!".

The decision was made to call the police. Just a few minutes after we called the police, the private security staff for the apartment walked by on patrol, so we roped them in as well. They knocked on crazy lady's room, still with no response. We briefed them on the fact that the old lady was crazy, had a drinking problem, was on medications, and possibly had a gun. And then after about twenty minutes the actual police got there and took charge. That's when the stereotypical domestic disturbance episode of COPS begins.

They were very professional.

She finally responded to the police, after a good minute of knocking and them saying that they will break the door down to offer assistance if she is blacked out drunk or hurt. She's polite to the police, but raging against the girls. Apparently they've done nothing but piss her off lately, a fact that the other three room mates were unaware of. She wasn't drunk enough or belligerent enough for the officers to arrest her, so basically the girls all left as she began laughing maniacally to herself.

"Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

I imagine she then puttered around the apartment for a few hours, talking to herself, and thinking of ways to exact her revenge. But not cleaning up the grease or trash, because that was all still there the next day apparently. How my friend is going to get out of this one, I don't yet know. But I'm sure it will provide some rather interesting stories for the next month or so.

Car Problems, Part Three

When I last stopped complaining about my car it had broken down twice in a matter of weeks, been repaired by the world's most incompetent mechanic and subsequently had its soul drained by my room mate's car. Well, as almost anyone who's ever owned a car, especially an old one, could have predicted it wasn't over then.

Oh yeah. The face palms are back!

About a week after all that went down, I decided to drive to Raleigh so I could help two different people move all their stuff. A friend from my undergrad years was moving from her town house to an apartment on Saturday; and as a small Asian girl with a small car, there was no way she could move a queen size mattress, a sofa, etc. all by herself. And my room mate's dad was moving to Raleigh and had a moving truck full of stuff that needed hauling.

Yeah, it sounds like a great weekend right?

Well, as part of this whole deal I had to borrow another friend's truck. And when I say truck, I really mean tank. Because whatever kind of truck he has should come with a slot for a turret gunner. I'm not just joking about how unwieldly and difficult to park it was. When I got there on Friday, he had actually been involved in an accident.

What was the damage you ask? His front bumper was dented and an NCSU vanity plate had to be replaced. "So it was just a fender bender right?" you say, sure that the other car was similarly lightly bruised. Oh no. He punted that car twenty yards, bent two of its tires under the car and broke its front axle.

Forget "right of way", he had "might of way".

So on Saturday he drove my car to work and I attempted to not destroy anything as I helped my friend move. That went more or less according to plan. He had to call me because the car wouldn't start (it has terrible battery leads) and I had to pull forward, cut it, and back up like a million times to fit into non-tractor trailer sized parking spaces.

Well, Sunday afternoon as I'm preparing to leave Raleigh I say all my goodbyes and thank him again for letting me use his truck and what not. That's when I discover that I can't get the car out of the "park" gear. It started fine, but just wouldn't come out of gear.

Fan-Fucking-Tastic.

I pop the hood to see if perhaps the oil had finally run out and maybe my engine was ruined. The oil dipstick's handle breaks off in my hand. The dipstick is still in the tank. I can't check the oil.

Great. Just what I needed. (sarcasm)

Okay. Okay. Calm down, go back inside and start asking for suggestions and turning to the magic of the interwebs to solve my problem. Google, do your thing. Text another friend who knows his way around a car's insides. Shouldn't be that big of a deal. Fingers crossed.

The friend must have been blazed, because he somehow thought that my car was stuck in "a park". Like a fucking state park with one of those gates and a sign that says "Gate closes at dark" or some shit. After like three or four more texts to clear that up, he says "Press the brake pedal when you're trying to change gears."

No shit, Sherlock. I know how to change gears.

Well, after a while, he finally says "Just pull really hard on the gear shift. That might work." And unable to find any help online, I am just desperate enough to try it. Right as I'm sure that the gear shift stick is about to snap in half, the car goes into drive! Huzzah! All is right in the world again! I am free!

Talk about premature celebrations.

Now, I put the car back in a parking space and turn it off so I can say goodbye to my friends, this time for real. But wait... The key won't come out of the ignition! What the fuck?

I struggle with that for another half an hour, texting, researching, hitting things with hammers...you know, things you do to fix things. But to no avail. That key is wedged in there tighter than that dorky kid in middle school's tighty whiteys after meeting the school bully.

Why doesn't this happen more often outside of television/movies?

"Fuck it!" I declare, and drive back to Greenville anyway. "I'll deal with this retarded car at a later date. I just have to get back before work tomorrow morning, and then I'll take it to a mechanic or something."

I only have one key for that car, and it was trapped in the ignition, so I had to leave one door unlocked in order to get back into the car. I disconnect the battery so it doesn't completely die on me before I can drive it to a mechanic. I'm mostly just glad to get back to the apartment without having a break down in the middle of nowhere on the high way.

Whew! Nearly looked like a fool there.

Once I finally get it to a mechanic, I tell them that I want my oil, transmission fluid, brake fluid, and whatever other types of fluids there are to be changed out. I would also like my oil dipstick fixed and my key out of the ignition. They estimate it will be like five hundred dollars or so. I swallow back some profanity and say, "Alright. I'll leave it here over night and pick it up tomorrow."

About half an hour later, they call me to say that they need to replace the starter switch in order to fix the key problem. That part and labor would cost about $1,300. If that doesn't give you a bit of sticker shock, consider that I paid $1,800 for the whole fucking car. I didn't really have an idea what they could possibly have to replace that is worth more than all four tires, the engine, the windows, doors, seats, radio and anything else that you want to list.

THIS!!! THIS IS WHAT IT IS!!!

How in the Nine Hells is that part and the labor needed worth nearly seventy five percent of an entire car? Needless to say (but I'll say it anyway) I told them to finish changing my oil or whatever and I would pick up the car right away.

After waiting an additional forty five minutes longer than they told me it would be to finish whatever they were doing, I had to get them to jump my car in order to get out of their parking lot because they had left the battery plugged in with the key in the ignition for a few hours.

"I'm surrounded by idiots!"

I was already late for class, but had all my school stuff back at my apartment. So I trudge through rush hour traffic and finally get there. But then, literally as I pull into a parking space the car dies! And won't crank. My room mate helps me push it the last six feet into the parking space. As far as I'm concerned a viable option would be just lighting it on fire and cleansing myself of this hunk of junk vehicle.

And I will dance around the flames.

Movie Mashups

If you've hung out with my room mate and me anytime in the past week or so, you've probably heard a bit about a game we've been playing. And by playing, I mean obsessing over, and spending a lot of time doing research, typing things up and brainstorming. The game is "Movie Mash Up", and it is exactly what it sounds like.

I was watching "Cougar Town" (Don't judge me. That show is pretty funny and Courtney Cox is still hot.) while at work one day, and realized that this game was totally awesome.

Thanks, Courtney.

The rules are pretty simple: you take two movies that share a word, then combine them. You then create a plot tag line and describe it to your friend, who tries to guess the two movies that went into it and what the combined title would be.

For example: "A fat orange cat who loves lasagna hears voices in his head and decides to build a baseball field." You think about the first part, and arrive at "Garfield". Then you think about the second part and get "Field of Dreams". The combined title is "Garfield of Dreams". See how the movie titles run together?

"If you build it, they will come."

Well, since my room mate and I both watch a lot of movies, love mental games of all sorts (especially word play or inside jokes) and enjoy telling funny stories to friends, we realized this game would be awesome. And the madness began.

At first we were pretty bad at the whole "last word of one movie is the same as the first word of the other movie" bit, and we stretched the rules a bit. Also, I have to admit that I stumbled frequently when trying to come up with a tagline for movies like "Hard Day's Night of the Living Dead".

"I want to hold your brains?"

So here are some of the best ones we've come up with. Some make sense, some sound like actual movies that might be produced if you whisper the plot to the right studio executive. Some are bat-shit crazy, and would a lot of fun to watch, but make no sense.

My room mate came up with the first one that really made us laugh, so I'm going to start the list off with it. Here goes.

#1) "Richard Gere has a huge dick, and a beach house in North Carolina. He starts banging this old lady who wears roller skates, and they film it. They exchange letters back and forth afterward, but he dies in the end. But he shows his junk."

Guess it yet?

"Boogie Nights In Rodanthe"!

Nick Sparks and Marky Mark's bastard love child.

#2) An all male jury must decide the fate of a young teen accused of murdering his father...while at the same time protecting Earth from aliens.

"12 Angry Men in Black"

Henry Fonda makes this suit look good.

#3) John Cusack owns a record store, and is really upset about his girlfriend breaking up with him. Then his really smart friend dies, so John rolls his ashes in with a joint and smokes it. Then he receives an admittance letter from Harvard.

"How High Fidelity"
It's definitely on the top five list of college movies.

#4) Hillary Swank is a struggling female boxer who needs some extra money...so she rents out her uterus to Tina Fey, who does not approve of things that her surrogate does, like boxing while pregnant. Hilarity ensues.

"Million Dollar Baby Mama"

"Blergh! I want you to jab, right in the tits!"

#5) Wesley Snipes may or may not be an android who hunts vampires in a dystopian future.

"Blade Runner"

"There are worse things out tonight than androids."

#6) Nicholas Cage provides the voice of a golden retriever wrongly imprisoned for killing a man, but soon finds himself trapped in a prisoner transport plane when the convicts take control. How will he ever make it to his basketball game in time?

"Con Air Bud"

"Nobody move, or Buddy gets it!"

The list goes on. Here are a few of the mashed up titles, think about some of the tag lines yourself, or just contact me and I can send you the five or six pages worth of movie mashups we've managed to brainstorm and type up.

- Freaky Friday After Next
- Tomb Raiders of the Lost Ark
- There Will Be Blood Diamond
- I Am Legends of the Fall
- Into the Wild Wild West
- Dirty Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (not a porno, I swear)
- The Empire Strikes Back to the Future
- Big Momma's House of Wax
- Blackhawk Down With Love
- She's the Man on Fire
- The Little Mermaid in Manhattan
- The Princess Bride Wars
- Deep Blue Seabiscuit
- Air Force One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- Free Willy 'Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

And, we've also come up with some movies that we like to call "Triple Word Scores". These Triple Word Scores are three movies that link up together. They're tough to think of, so we've only got two. But they're pretty freaking good. Unfortunately I don't have the photo shopping skills to make even moderately convincing posters for these movies.

The closest I'll get to a TWS image

#7) "Billy Bob Thornton plays a gravely voiced day-walker who may or may not be a retarded android that hunts down vampires in desolate future where animal life is rare."

"Sling Blade Runner"

#8) "Johnny Depp has to care for his younger brother and obese mother...in the dustbowl of Great Depression era California...while fighting against a genetically engineered superhuman."

"What's Eating Gilbert Grapes of Wrath of Khan"

Think you've got a great movie mashup? Let me know, and maybe we'll add it to our list. If you can, think of a creative tagline to go with it, because that's half of the joke.

*Update*

I came up with a four part movie mashup recently, and I have to say that I'm more than a little proud of it. No idea how to come up with a tagline though. But here's the title and corresponding images. If you've got a plot, let me know.

#9) Total Recall of the Wild, Wild West Side Story

I really have no idea how to write a plot for this...

Car Problems, Part Two

After my car broke down the other week, and the terrible yet rather funny experience with the worst mechanic known to man, I was fairly certain that my car troubles were over for at least a few days. I had my car parked in front of my apartment, my room mate had just come back from his med school interviews, blaring "Where the Party At?" on his car speakers.

Happy days!

Life was good. I figured that my troubles were going to be held at bay for at least a few days. I mean, how much could go wrong with my car in the next 24 hours? I don't know why I even bother to think that anymore.

Seriously though.

I drove my car to class that night, and as I got out of class and turned my phone back on, I saw that I had a text message from my room mate saying that his car had a dead battery and that he'd appreciate my help jumping his car. I thought, "Sure, no problem."

So I got back to the apartment, parked my car and walked inside. Turns out what had happened was that since he has a keyless start, he had accidentally left it in idle after turning it on briefly to roll up his windows. No big deal. It's a pretty new car, so we figured it couldn't be that big a deal to jump it and didn't get out there right away. We ate some dinner and watched like forty-five minutes of television and then decided it was time to go outside and jump his car.

This is when things begin to go downhill.

Perhaps I should have realized that my battery might not be the strongest. For one, it's probably the same battery that came with the car when it rolled out of the factory in 1999. Also, it had been loitering in a public library parking lot for an entire week while that rocket surgeon of a repairman tried to find and then subsequently fix my car.

What I'm getting at is that my battery was dead.

My room mate decides to call University Transportation, because as part of our status as tuition payers we get some decent perks, like somebody to come jump our car on campus. And we live so close to the medical campus that there's normally no problem with a request like that. Well not this time.

Not only did the person we got on the phone somehow not know where the medical campus was, she couldn't comprehend that we live on the same street that runs right next to the regular campus and she didn't understand that there were two students, each with a dead car. She wasted nearly ten minutes of our time asking for our vehicle make, model, license plate numbers, telephone numbers, student ID numbers, mother's maiden names, etc before we finally hung up in frustration.

"I just told these two grad students to shove it"

No problem, right? We've got friends. Some of those friends have cars. Some of them are even reliable enough to help us out. So we sent out some texts desperately begging for help. But in a dignified manner.

Hey, we've got our dignity.

One of our friends decided to help us out. So he shows up and tries to jump start my room mate's car. To no avail. Now, I had been thinking about getting a new battery for my car anyway, so instead of just trying to jump my car, we drove to Walmart and bought a new battery for my car. That should help our situation out, right?

So we get back to the apartment, install my brand new battery, so fresh that you can smell the acid (not really), in my car. Since it's a brand new battery, and I was already parked next to my room mate's dead car, we decided to jump his car with my car. Seems like it would work, right?

Wrong. It didn't work. His car showed less signs of life than a career path as one of those guys who light the whale blubber oil lamps. Or perhaps an elevator operator.

This guy knows what I'm talking about.

Since that didn't work, my room mate managed to convince our friend and me to try something that he called the "double jump". For anyone who might not realize what the double part of that phrase refers to, it means that we were going to hook up two cars to the dead car. Sounds like nothing could go wrong, right?

Surprisingly, nothing actually goes wrong with that part of the plan. What does go wrong is that when we attempt to position our cars so that both batteries were in range of the jumper cables, my car doesn't start. Not like, has problems starting. Like, won't even beep when you put the key in the ignition.

Seriously, how often does this shit happen?

Somehow my room mate's car managed to suck the very life force out of a brand fucking new battery. How is that even possible? Like seriously, how can an entirely new battery fail to produce enough power to jump another battery? It's not like we were trying to start an F-17 with a golf cart. It was car to car.

My room mate turns to our friend and says, "Try to jump my car with yours now." My friend and I both turn to each other and say something along the lines of "Hold up! We don't need to have three cars all with dead batteries."

Bump that noise.

Luckily though, we were able to line up a second friend with a car who would be willing to come try and jump our cars if my room mate's car managed to drain the soul out of our friend's car as well. So we used the friend's car to jump my car, and then lined up for the double jump. Both of our cars hooked up to my room mate's car, attempting to breath some life back into the black hole that is my room mate's car.

Somehow, his car managed to take the combined power of two batteries, two fucking batteries, being run pretty hard, without getting more juice than was needed to roll his windows up or down. This isn't just one battery that failed. His car was showing less life than... well... you get the point.

It's probably just taking a nap.

So the next day, he calls AAA to get a truck out to our apartment and jump his car. The truck shows up with one of those handy dandy portable jumper batteries. Big surprise, that doesn't work on his vampire of a car. This is like the fifth combined battery that has failed to power his car and I'm starting to think that maybe we should just start sacrificing virgins or something.

You didn't think I meant hot girls, did you?

So the mechanic asks to borrow my jumper cables, and hooks my room mate's car up to his tow truck. The truck has two batteries in it, each of which is more powerful than a regular car battery. At long last, my room mate's car rises from the dead with a roar. He let it run for a good fifteen or so minutes, and I swear I heard it revving it's own engine a few times.

That car scares me now.

Car Problems

Some of you might have read an earlier post about bicycles, and the hassles that accompany them. This one is about cars, because apparently bad luck is not limited to two wheeled vehicles. As somebody who appreciates the humor in life, the following post documents the unabated week or two of car problems that recently plagued me and my room mate.

First off, some background information about the cars involved. The car that I own is a 1999 Ford Escort. It's gold, has four wheels, two doors, a sunroof, you know... car things. Anyway, about a month ago my car broke down while I was out of town. Although I'm not too mechanically inclined when it comes to cars, I did know that it wasn't the battery, the gas, oil, spark plugs, radiator, or what not.

Should have checked the flux capacitor, Doc.

Anyway, it turns out that the problem with my car had something to do with a primer belt, or a timer belt, or some sort of belt. It was rather inconvenient to be stranded an hour away from both my house and my apartment. It was fixed, and all was right with the world again. Happy days!

Little did I know, this was just a taste of the car troubles yet to come.

Cue ominous music.

A few weeks later, a veritable monsoon hit the eastern part of the state. Roads were closed, homes flooded, even some schools were shut down because of the excessive amounts of rain pouring down. Driving through that did not agree with my car in the least. After driving through a puddle the size of a small pond, suddenly my car didn't want to turn.

Lucky for that pedestrian, my brakes still worked.

So I manage to pull my car into the parking lot of the local public library where it would be slightly less likely to be pillaged for spare parts or towed than if it was simply left on the street somewhere. I took a look at it, and the engine belt was draped over my wheel axle. Not a good look for my car.

I had a similar experience once with a makeover attempt.

I went to get some estimates from local repair shops, all of whom were rather unhelpful and vague when it came to giving me a quote. I brought in photos of the problem, with a detailed description, and all they could do was say "somewhere between 100 and 300 dollars". Not cool. As a poor college student, that kind of bank is not really what I'm all about.

So, that weekend, while attempting to figure out what to do about my down and out car, a friend mentioned that he knows a mechanic who will come to where your car is (saving on towing) and fixes things for less than most repair shops charge. Sounds like a win right?

Wrong... So very wrong.

The friend who recommended this "Mobile Mechanic" happens to be a little flaky at times. We attribute part of this to his status as a home schooled kid. Perhaps I should have realized that this might not work out as smoothly as anticipated.

I call the guy, tell him what type of car I drive, what's wrong with it, and where it's parked. I also gave him my cell and work phone numbers in case he needs to get up with me about the car. I even tell him where I'm leaving the spare key for him. Seems like all you should need, right?

Wrong! Again!

He can't find the car. It's not like I parked in a super center parking lot or anything, with multiple levels or anything. I parked in the only fucking parking lot next to the only fucking library downtown. I was the only gold, two door, sun roof-having Ford Escort out of the thirty cars in the entire parking lot. This should have been easier than finding Waldo in Antarctica.

Not for this guy.

There comes a time when you have to realize that thinks aren't going smoothly, you need to cut your losses and move on. However, I am notoriously both stubborn and lazy. I wanted my car fixed, and fixed the way I started.

After nearly a week of having my car sit in the library parking lot, I got so paranoid that I started seeing tow trucks everywhere. Like, more than I've ever seen in my life outside of a 50 car pileup on the freeway.

I also began to hear unexplained fake country accents.

Luckily for me, the library apparently doesn't care if a car stays parked in their lot, without moving, at all. My car sat in that parking lot at all times. It was there at 11:30 at night, it was there at 5:45 in the morning, and it was there at 1:30 in the afternoon. All week.

The only good part of this story is that the fly by night mechanic only charged me ninety dollars for fixing my car. That was a good deal. And for that, I will not attempt to blacklist that terrible mechanic. It might have taken him five phone calls, three visits to the library parking lot, some research and a little bit of actual work, but he got it done.

Great job guy!