Roommates

Yesterday's post reminded me of something...I've been on my own for almost ten years now. I got my first apartment on August 2, 2002. I was twenty years old and realized that under no circumstances would I roll the dice again at a North Carolina Central University dorm. Part of my decision (but not all of it) was based on my luck with roommates.

I had four roommates in two years. Two weren't that bad, we just had lifestyle differences. One was just a blunt away from full glaucoma immunity. He smoked weed 12 hours a day in the closet by himself. Too many close calls with campus police forced me to move on. The other guy was like The Odd Couple. I sneezed and he'd scorch the earth with Lysol. He offered to teach me how to make up my bed because my corners aren't sharp. We split amicably to keep from killing each other. But...

I had a crazy roommate freshman year who was probably the sweetest and kindest guy in the world, and that made him public enemy number one as far as I'm concerned. When you're in the trenches of war the last person you want covering your back is a bright eyed bushy tailed pacifist. In his mind, our dorm was the Hamptons. In my mind we were in The Bronx. You don't leave your dorm room unlocked to go to the cafeteria in The Bronx. You don't fall for the "Your roommate said I could borrow his VCR" in The Bronx. He had to go. We can still be friends (Hell, in the future you're gonna be the best man at my wedding), but  I'm getting a different roommate.

Sophomore year I had a roommate who started off okay for about a week. Then I woke up one morning and he was sitting half naked at his desk sweating up a storm and chanting something like Rafiki from The Lion King. He had put a red light bulb in his lamp and was bopping up and down holding a cross. I'd been around plenty of crackheads in DC, but this was new. I grabbed a pair of those sharp metal scissors off my desk and put them under my pillow. He didn't seem violent, but just in case his God had a plan that involved me, I had a sharp metal object that involved him.

Things kinda went south after that. I guess during one of his seances to bring The Mummy back to life he was given a vision that girls shouldn't be in our room. It wasn't like I was running a brothel or anything. To be fair, I offered to keep them out when he was there, but he felt that it tainted the sanctity of our room to have them there at all. I countered with a very effective Last Dragon Sho 'Nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, 'NIG-GA PLEASE' stare. We made it a whole semester.

Finally, I got my own place. The roommates didn't scare me away. It was something else. I'll talk about that tomorrow.