The word "roommate" can evoke fear in the hearts of most, ice-cold shivers to sliver down one's spine and grown ass men to curl up into a ball and cry like babies especially if you've lived through college roommate horror stories. We've all heard of them: too dirty, too clean, she's a slut or she's a prude, he never leaves the room, he plays guitar hero all day, he smells or she steals my stuff. That's just the tip of the iceberg. I myself have been pretty lucky in the roommate pool. Sure, freshman year I had a messy, blonde, lesbian, clepto-maniac, daddy's lil rich girl, coke-head roommate who was arrested the day after moving into our freshman dorm at NYU but she never really bothered me and on an even more positive side, she provided me with a butt-load of great stories to share with family and friends.
So after four years of evading the roomate from hell, here I am, 23 years old, and its finally caught up with me. The thing is, though, that this is not my first time living with this girl. I never had a problem before, but somehow, after four years of college, I have ended up back in my mother's house and she's the craziest roommate I've ever seen.
I know plenty of other college alumnis who came back home and experienced the shittiness of living with your parents again, however, their gripes usually revolve around their parents lack of respect for their independence and their parents treating them like children again.
No. My problem revolves around something completely different:
My mother doesn’t like the sink to be wet and she can’t stand when the garbage can is full of garbage. OK. Now let’s take a minute to ponder this as I did the first time she twisted her face into a disapproving chagrin and stated these “you’re living back in my house, kiddo” guidelines.
The sink, I mulled over in my head, that’s sole purpose is to hold and dispense water, can’t be wet? SMH
Not to mention our clear plastic garbage can with the white garbage bag wrapped meticulously inside and over its rims to catch any food scraps, tissues, or general garbage should not have garbage inside of it?
Puzzling, I know, and you better believe that I quickly stated the inherent irony to my mother. Her response was that it’s not the water, per say, that bothers her; it’s the water spots that are left on the sink when it has not been dried properly that gets under her skin. And as for the garbage, well obviously, we shouldn’t leave garbage hanging around inside the garbage can because it is dirty.
In a week we probably go through 5 disposed paper towel rolls used to dry the outside and inside of the sink every time I filled up a cup of water or washed my hands and 52 trips downstairs, into the garage, to empty the garbage cans.
My mother is the type to rearrange the dishwasher according to her special dishwasher loading design which apparently optimizes our dishwasher's washing ability and rearrange the contents inside our refrigerator so that it is aesthetically pleasing when you open it to reach for the milk carton.
Im in the worst kind of hell. It's not as if she just lives in her OCCD (overly compulsively clean disorder) world and doesn't bother me either. No, she bothers me every day about how after I shower, the shower doors must be left approximately 15% open on both sides so that the air from the window will dry it properly. I live with Mother Monk.
On the good side, I have never felt such a deep and concentrated inspiration to apply to graduate school and get the fuck out of here as I do now. But until I am accepted into some school and have a means to leave my roommate/mother in her disinfected and color-coordinated world, I'm on that new diet regimen where I don't eat anything and definetely don't drink anything ... Damnit! I refuse to use the goddamn sink! I'll swallow my spit, thank you, and tell myself it's worth it considering how good my reflection of me in my skinny jeans looks while I windex the shower handles.
