Hide the Broccoli

This next tale from the near side comes from the early part of last autumn, when I had just recently moved into the apartment where I live now. Now, I had known my room mate beforehand, so this wasn't some sort of random room mate match made in hell as described in Aziz Ansari's latest stand up special.

If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.
If you haven't, you need to get on that. Pronto.

However, I met him two years ago when we were both R.A.s during our undergrads and didn't really know him super well. I never really paid attention to how he lived, ate or did whatever things that typically get on room mate's nerves. Also, I hadn't actually seen him in about half a year and all our communications had been over the phone or email. Who knows how he might have changed over that time period?

Tragic acid accidents are more common than you'd think.

I had the pleasure of meeting all three of the people with whom he had shared the apartment with at some point during the previous year. All of them had left for various reasons ranging from graduating, transferring or just personal differences. So I was just a tad apprehensive about living with him. I've had room mates before and they had turned out great, but there's only so long that I cared to trust my luck.

Well, not to spoil the ending, but living with him has been great so far. We get along well, have fun hanging out, and most importantly, he hasn't become my nemesis yet. In fact, he's one of the people who pushed me to create this blog and spread some of the humor we share to the rest of the interweb, or just preserve it so that we can laugh about it later.

So, as a result of him having three different room mates over the past year, and all of them having different tastes in food, there was a wide variety of food in the cabinet and refrigerator when I showed up. He was away for a while and wouldn't be back for a few days, so I had the place all to myself. Stop thinking what you're thinking. Nothing of the sort happened. I in no way used the entire apartment as my own personal ball pit.

2.7 children a year go into ball pits and never return.

Back to the food. So there's a bunch of food in the fridge, and I kind of have to assume that a fair amount of it is his. So I wedge some groceries in around all the different things. Soon enough though, it became obvious that some of the food would have to go. We couldn't have three different types of peanut butter taking up all sorts of space.

After one particular grocery store trip, we returned with mass quantities of frozen foods, one of the staples of any college aged chef's menu. As we opened up the freezer, it quickly became apparent that there was no way that all the food was going to fit. And so, like the occupants of a sinking zeppelin, we began to think about what we would jettison in order to maintain altitude.

"What do you mean we threw out the parachutes?"

It was at this point that my room mate turned to me and said, "Well, I think that we just need to throw out your giant fucking bag of broccoli. Then we'd have more than enough room for these new things." And I was like, "I thought that was your huge bag of frozen broccoli! I hate cooked broccoli. I figured you were just into eating healthy, based on the organic almond butter that's in the fridge." He was like, "No, no, no. Homie don't play that uber healthy stuff. You couldn't pay me to eat that." It turned out that it was just a great big sitcom style misunderstanding.

Oh. It was all a big misunderstanding...

After we realized that neither of us was the original owner of the monstrous bag of frozen vegetables, the decision to chunk it was easy. However, the trash can was pretty full at the moment, so we just set it down next to the trash. My room mate says, "In a little while, that bag of broccoli is going to smell pretty rank. You know what would be funny? I'm going to throw this in your room and let the stink get you." And I answer, "Well, I'll just put it in your room next." He laughed and said, "It'll be a game of hide the broccoli."So he takes it and chucks it right inside my doorway. "Tag, you're it. I'll see you in broccoli hell!" I chuckle a bit and then we move on.

Later that night, after we get back from playing some basketball at the gym, I realized that it was the perfect time to put the ball in his court. And by ball, I mean broccoli. And by broccoli, I mean a ticking time bomb.

Like this, but more difficult to disarm

One habit that my room mate has is the tendency to take really long showers. And often. Like, he will take a twenty minute shower, with the accompanying body wash, conditioner and luffa-ing before he goes to the gym. So he looks good for any of the ladies who happen to be there. Anyway, the point is: he's going to be in the shower for a good while. That gives me time to plant the bag of broccoli somewhere in his room and still take a shower before he gets out, none the wiser. It is so on.

Not wanting to make the initial escalation too big of a step, I merely lift up the edge of his bed curtain-thing (whatever it is that drapes down off the bottom of his mattresses and hangs to the floor) and place the bag of broccoli right there where he keeps some of those under the bed rolling storage containers full of shirts or something. Feeling good about a solid move in this dangerous game of one-ups-manship, I proceed to pretend like I don't even remember that the broccoli was in my room to begin with.

The next day, I had class pretty much all day. I knew that he was alone at the apartment, and if he got out of bed before noon or so, he definitely looked under his bed. Knowing this, I get back and don't ask him if he found the bag. If he hasn't, I'm not going to tip him off. Later that night we go to the gym again to play some basketball or something. Same deal as the previous night. I hop in the shower, am done in like ten minutes. I then proceed to tear apart my room looking for that bag of broccoli.

Artist's simulation

I noticed that my pillow looked a little bit flat. So I investigated. That sneaky bastard had taken my pillow out of it's case, and replaced it with the bag of broccoli! That's how big that bag of rapidly decaying organic matter was. The size of my fucking pillow! Who even needs that much broccoli? Was that previous room mate trying to make the world's largest shepherds pie or something? Honestly. There's no need to have that much broccoli. Ever!

Thankfully, my room mate had decided that he didn't want to mess up the pillow case with a sweating bag of broccoli, and had placed the veggies inside a trash bag. I'm rather partial to that pillow case as my mother made if for me. It's a Batman pattern, so that way I never forget it at a hotel or some friend's house. I instantly know that it is my pillow, because it is equal parts awesome and lame, but always identifiable. I take the bag-in-a-bag of broccoli out of my room and think to myself, "Where can I place this that it will not be easy to find?"

Like if he was hiding in a barber shop pole factory.

Across the hallway from his room, my room mate has a small closet. Within that closet, there is for some inexplicable reason, a filing cabinet. "Eureka!" I exclaim. Not really. I don't think I've ever actually used the word "eureka" until just now. Anyway, I place the bag inside one of the drawers of the filing cabinet, inside the closet, which is at the junction of his bedroom and bathroom. I think to myself, "This will be perfect! It will take a longer time for the smell to get out, but as it does, it will be all the more potent for the delay! He'll have a tough time finding this not so little bundle of joy." And that's exactly how that shit went down.

The next evening, I'm in class. We went to the library for some reason. I guess graduate students need to be told how to find books and articles in a library. Anyway, I get a text from my room mate that says the following: "When are you getting out of class? I've been looking for that fucking broccoli all day. It smells like a there's a dead body in the apartment." I text him back that I'm in the library and will be done soon. Turns out he was in the library already, probably because he actually likes to study or some sort of lame excuse.

How my studying normally ends.

He doesn't bother with small talk when I walk up to where he was sitting. "I looked everywhere for that bag of broccoli. Under my bed, in my shower, in the oven, on top of my wardrobe. I can't find it anywhere. I even checked the freezer just to see if you put it back there to fuck with my mind" he says. Laughing, I tell him that he should have looked under "S" for "Stinky Ass Vegetables" and tell him I'll get rid of it when we get home.

So we go home. I'm under the impression that he was exaggerating the smell. He was not. As soon as I opened the front door, it hit me. Hit me like a wave of fetid, decomposing, nostril burning pungency. Choking back a little bit of vomit, I quickly remove the bag from the cabinet inside the closet and proceed to throw it out into the dumpster near our apartment building. "Well, I'm glad that's over" we proclaim as we dust our hands off and start plugging in more Glade air fresheners. Sadly, much like seemingly every horror movie ever, it wasn't over.

Seriously? What the hell were they thinking?

Over the next few day, we noticed a distinct lack of non-stink in the apartment. Mostly around his room, but I could still smell it if I was sitting in the living room. Just to be sure that it was coming from the broccoli residue and not an actual dead body, we enlisted the help of one of our neighbor's dog. We let Neighbor Dog inside, took him off his leash and watched him sprint to my room mate's bed room. He proceeds to sniff around the base of the bed, scratch at it some and promptly lie down right where I had placed the broccoli the first time as if to say, "I know why you brought me here. This shit smells terrible! Here's where it was." Well, our course of action seemed pretty clear. Simply put, we had to cleanse that particular stretch of carpet. Easier said than done.

After several days, and several attempts to scrub out the smell, vacuum out the smell, absorb out the smell, pretty much everything short of setting the room on fire, the smell is still there! It smelt so bad that it stunk up the vacuum cleaner when we used it. We had to wash out the insides of the vacuum with bleach just to get it to stop smelling and buy a new filter to boot. We nearly ruined a vacuum cleaner just by attempting to clean where this broccoli had been. Now we're worried. We begin googling for "toxic bacteria in broccoli" "deadly broccoli mold" and other such search topics.

We wish we had some HAZMAT suits laying around.

Finally, we manage to find some sort of super cleaner at a hardware store. The description says that it will neutralize mold, bacteria, viruses, mildew, stains, rust, etc. This product was essentially a tactical nuke in a spray bottle. And get this, it had the audacity to proclaim "Safe for Children!" How can something be safe for children when it can kill or remove anything smaller than a large tabby with a few sprays? Whatever. It was war. We did what we had to. And that stuff worked, thank God. Again, we dust our hands off and say, "Glad that's over."

A few weeks later, I decide that it doesn't need to be over. While my room mate is back home over the weekend, I do a little shopping. Halloween was about a month or more away, so of course all the stores have 10 lb bags of candy for sale. Now both of us love candy, and both of us also appreciate a good joke. However, my room mate would not be in on the joke, which made it even more hilarious to me. I buy a giant bag of mixed candy, design and print out a fake broccoli label to put on it. I hide in the exact same spot as the first time, and sit back to await my room mate's return to the apartment.

Not what he wanted to see hiding under his bed.

He gets back that Sunday, and I'm sitting in the living room playing some video games or something. We say all the usual "How was you weekend?" stuff and then he begins unpacking. Suddenly it gets really quiet in his room. After about a minute or two, he comes out, nearly shaking in rage/shock. "You mother fucker! I'm going to kill you for this shit! Don't you realize that I had to wait this long just to get my heart rate down to merely startled?" After he calmed down a bit, he explained what happened.

He reached under the bed without looking to grab the rolling container, when he felt his hand grab something crinkly. As quickly as he could, he drew his hand back, but like a snake bite, it was already too late by the time he felt it. He said that the first thing that crossed his mind was, "I'm going to miss that hand." He knew in his heart of hearts that the only way to get the smell of broccoli off that hand would be with a saw or a blowtorch.

What he imagined his future to be consigned to.

Surrendering himself to his fate, he grasped the suspected bag of death with both hands and withdrew it from under the bed. Upon seeing the fake broccoli label, he just leaned forward and sighed, thrilled to be uncontaminated, but unable to get his survival instincts to lessen up just a little bit. He had never been that happy to have a bag of candy. And that is the story of "Hide the Broccoli". And as my facebook says, "Never, under any circumstances, play a game of Hide the Broccoli. There are no winners."