2010-05-21

Roommate From Hell

After reading SharkBoy's blog about his Evil Roommate, it made me start thinking about my roommate from hell.

This was the summer of 1991. I had been living at home after I dropped out of college. I had lost my drivers license because of so many tickets, so I needed to move into town. Plus, I really didn't want to be living with my parents again. I had already signed a lease for the fall, but I needed to find a place to live for the summer. So Jack, a friend of mine, said he had a cool 1 bedroom apartment that he was going to rent for the summer. He wanted to know if I wanted to stay there. And just for the record, Jack and I were never very close friends. We just knew each other and he often hung around my circle of friends. This was a small town and most of the gay men knew each other.

The living arrangements started off good. He worked at the restaurant/nightclub next door. The restaurant I worked for was about 6 blocks away and easily walkable. Our schedules were different with me working mornings and him working evenings, so we rarely saw each other. And for most nights, he wouldn't sleep in his bed, he slept on the couch. Life was pretty good.

Soon enough, the problems began. He never once bought anything for the apartment. He was eating my food and drinking my drinks. And he would go through toilet paper like crazy! I stopped bring food and drinks into the apartment unless I was going to eat them right then. I also never bought any more toilet paper. I was very good at holding it until I would go to work or a friend's house.

It was a very hot and humid summer that year. I walked in and the apartment was very warm. I checked the thermostat thinking he had turned the a/c off, but no, he had turned the thermostat down to below 50°! If you have never tried this before, our a/c unit was in a closet. When he cranked the thermostat down to below 50°, it froze the pipes in the a/c unit. By the time I had found it, the a/c unit was a solid block of ice. This same even happened at least 3 or 4 times that I remember. And each time, I would bitch him out and tell him that you cannot turn the temperature down that low. We would be without a/c for a few hours each time.

And then I started to notice stuff disappearing. First I couldn't find a few shirts of mine. And honestly, I thought I had probably left them at the laundromat. But then other things started to disappear. A music CD. Some food. A skillet. Some books. When I would confront him, he said he had no idea where they were. So I packed up everything I owned except for essential clothes, and stored it all at a friend's house. Jack never once said anything about how all of my stuff had disappeared.

Fast forward to the end of the 3 month lease. Jack is moving out a week before the lease is over and he was moving to his mom's house in Oklahoma. The night before he was leaving, he had to work had left all of his belongings packed in garbage bags. So I untied the bags and started going through them. Sure enough, there was all of my shirts that had disappeared. I also found my skillet, music CDs and books. I also found some of my underwear (with shit tracks in them, DISGUSTING!). UGH! I removed all of my belongings (except for the shit covered underwear, he can keep those) and tied the bags back shut. I was at work when he left town. He never once left a note or tried to contact me again. Of course, I had the last laugh. It was his name on the lease, not mine. I never bothered to clean when I moved out. After all, in the 3 months we had lived there, he never once bothered to clean anything. And he sure didn't bother to clean when he left. A few years later, my best friend Jeff ran into Jack in a St. Louis bar. Jack told Jeff how upset he was because I left the apartment such a mess. Honestly, I didn't leave it any messier than he had left it. I just never cleaned anything. He was upset of course because he never got his security deposit back. I should have been nicer I suppose, he could have used that money to buy some toilet paper to wipe his ass properly. That would have kept somebody else's underwear from being so nasty!

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2010-05-18

My Visit with Charry

The Fiesta message board,Collectible Medium Green (CMG), that I frequent is having a little fun with a Chartreuse 10" vase, that we have named Charry. Charry is being sent to different CMG members around the country. They take pictures of Charry around local attractions in their area. My turn came up recently, and this was my visit with Charry.


The other day, I had double the surprise when Charry and the Dish Fairy both visited. Charry said he was feeling a little bit claustrophobic and wanted to get out and stretch his "legs" after the long trip from California. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't cooperating very well. Luckily, a few days later, the sun made a nice and very welcomed visit! So I took Charry to one of my favorite places in town, the Wandell Sculpture Park at Meadowbrook Park. This is where I love to go bicycling or walking.



Charry was a little bit nervous after meeting some of the "folks" that love to hang out at the park.


Next, we came upon a naked woman, and poor Charry had no idea what to think of this place.


Charry couldn't get away from the naked woman fast enough! But he was a bit curious about the couple he found around the corner. They seemed to be in the middle of some sensual dance.


Next up was this pair, who looked like they might be in the middle of some fight. Charry tried to get in the middle of them and break them up, but they were much bigger. So Charry decided to leave them alone.


But soon after we left the more colorful people of the park, we came across a HUGE rabbit. Charry thought he had died and gone to chocolate easter egg heaven, but I warned him about those "chocolate" eggs. They might not taste very well!


After seeing such a big rabbit, Charry wasn't a bit surprised to see such a big bear. Of course, Charry wanted to know why the bear was sitting on a pine cone. Unfortunately, even I could not answer this question. I just let know Charry that we are a bit different around here. ;D


Charry had a good time checking out some of the other sculptures around the park.



And Charry was already to play when he found this group of kids having fun. This colorful bunch welcomed him right away and he couldn't believe he had finally met some people that were almost as bright as him.


After the kids had gone away, Charry was still in a playful mood. He decided to play a little hide-and-seek.



We were having so much fun, Charry never noticed the signs of keeping off of the sculptures. Luckily, we made a quick exit before anybody kicked us out of the park.


After all of the walking and playing around, Charry was ready to go back into his box for his next adventure. So Charry was sent on his merry way!
(Please note: your computer has to be facing the right direction for the arrow to match up to where Charry is visiting next!)

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