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.

"She's Cool Man!"

A few months back, a friend of mine was about to have her 22nd birthday but was less than enthused about it. Now, I'm of the belief that birthdays should be at least acknowledged if not celebrated. When I mentioned that her birthday was coming up, she insisted that she didn't really want to make a big deal of it because she felt like turning 22 made her feel really old.

This woman is actually only 28 years old.

She had an almost plausible explanation, since the majority of the people she hangs out with are freshmen and sophomores in college. As graduate students, my room mate and I are both significantly older than the majority of the people in that particular group of friends, so we know how that goes. But as guys, we know that we only get more distinguished looking as the years go by, while it's normally a sharp decline for women. See evidence below.

Both these people are roughly 50. Which one doesn't look like Skeletor?

And Madonna is said to "look good for her age". That's got to suck for all you women out there.

A 25 year old realizing her looks are fleeting.

I asked her what she wanted to do for her birthday, and she said she didn't want to do anything really. So naturally I told her that I would make a huge deal of her birthday. I started spouting off random ways to make a big deal of it, ranging from the mundane to the inane.

I said that I would follow her around all day bursting through the doors of her classes to yell "Happy Birthday!". Creating a bunch of graffiti around campus with her picture stating that it was her 22nd birthday. Arranging to have the dining hall staff come out with a cupcake and a candle on top, singing "Happy Birthday". Getting a skywriter's airplane to tell the whole city it was her birthday.

Have clowns follow her around, making balloon animals.

For some reason she freaked out, perhaps believing that I would actually do any of those things. So after some quick back-pedaling and promises not to make a big deal out of it on my part, we came to an agreement to just let it go.

I did not just let it go.

I decided that if I couldn't throw a surprise party, perhaps the next best thing would be a novelty style present. Now, when I say novelty, I don't mean a "can of snakes" or anything like that, I just mean a present that is more than just a regular gift.

"Surprise! It's actually filled with candy!"

I decided to create a treasure hunt sort of thing for her birthday present. I went around to local businesses and places on campus to ask it if would be cool for me to leave a clue with them for her to pick up as she worked through a series of hints and clues in order to reach the end and get her present.

After getting enough places and people to agree to help me, I started to think up some riddles and what not, and then had to find a way to leave the clues in such a way that she wouldn't be able to tell it was me right away. Given my fondness for arts and crafts (stop laughing, you don't know that I don't like those) and my knowledge of Batman villains (ie the Riddler), the solution was easy to come to.

Cut and paste letters together to make ransom note style clues.

Not sketchy... At all...

I wasn't sure what clues I was going to write, so instead of picking out the letters I need for the the notes, I just cut out letters indiscriminately. So after cutting out a bunch of letters from magazines, newspapers and fliers I had a large pile of cut out letters spread out on the kitchen table. Again, not sketch at all...

Quick side note, my room is sparsely decorated. I prefer to think of it as "spartan" or "minimalist". But some people have joked that it resembles what a serial killer's room might look like. You know, as they sit there under a naked light bulb, crocheting a cute little human skin ascot or whatever the hell serial killers do in their spare time.

Besides listen to "Huey Lewis and the News" of course!

My room mate immediately was like, "What happens if I bring some chick over here tonight, we walk in and she sees like these ransom notes? She's going to think I brought her her to kill her or something! You'll come out of your room, all big and beardy looking and what not. And I'll have to be like, "No! She's cool man!". How do you think that's going to affect my game? Poorly. That's how."

So in summary, it's inconsiderate to give out the slightest illusion that you might be a kidnapping serial killer because it adversely affects your room mate's ability to mack on some random girl he met at a bar.

Lesson learned.

On a side note, the treasure hunt went really well and I think that my friend really enjoyed her birthday present. The actual gift at the end wasn't very expensive, but I think that putting the time and effort into creating the journey was what she really appreciated.

"Very nice!"