Yep, it’s One-Up Wednesday again. Our topic this week comes from Addofio‘s comment (and hey! She can cut and paste it, a recyclable One-Up entry): Roommate-From-Hell Stories. I’ll tell you about my worst roommate, and you try to One-Up me in the comments.
My worst roommate was Japanese. She made rice every day for dinner. Oh, but how did she make rice? She put rice and water in a saucepan, and put it on the highest setting. When the water boiled over, coating the burner with a starchy, slimy mess, she turned down the heat until the mess was baked onto the burner and the rice was cooked. After eating, she rinsed her dishes and the saucepan in cold water (no soap), and put them in the cupboard. And that was the ONLY cleaning she ever did. EVER.
Ask me if she ever (even once) cleaned the burned-on rice scum. Go ahead, ask!
But the thing that most got my goat was this: we got a phone bill once with $3 in 411 calls. I never (never!) used Information. I always looked numbers up in the phone book because I didn’t want to pay a quarter for information I could get for free.
Of course, both my roommates insisted they had not made any of the 12 calls either. So when I totaled the charges, I divided the 411 calls evenly ($1 each), though I knew I hadn’t made any of them. Our other roommate paid the amount I’d figured, no problem.
But the Japanese roommate? She subtracted $1 from an $200 phone bill (calls to Japan weren’t cheap), saying, “That charge isn’t mine because I didn’t make those calls.”
So I had to pay her share. What could I do? The phone was in my name.
OK, your turn! Tell me your worst roommate stories, and let’s see if you can One-Up me. And some Wednesday in the future, I’ll pick a winner and find something silly to send them to commemorate their misfortune victory.
As far as Kitchen Disasters go, I had a terrible time choosing a winner! You guys have too many great (read: horrible) stories. I can’t believe how many of us have had fires (Lurinda‘s was especially scary), and Trudy‘s story of exploding glass — twice! — made me shudder. But I finally decided the winner had to be Becki, for the sheer number of stories if nothing else. As she said, I love the story about baking the oven mitt into the cake, but cutting yourself making cookies? Granted, it’s been a long time since I made cookies, but you don’t even use a knife to make cookies, do you?
I thought about sending her a heat-resistant oven mitt as a gift, but after reading about fires, exploding machines, and flying glass … I thought maybe we better get Becki out of the kitchen altogether. Gotta protect that baby! So instead, I’m sending a giftcard. I’ll have to figure out which one — Google tells me there’s an Applebee’s in her little town, but I had something more interesting in mind. So we’ll just say … one dinner date’s on me. And thanks for the stories, all of you!
Tags: Roommates
February 27, 2008 at 11:51 pm |
Lol. I think my husband was happy when we sitched to a flat surface stove top because I cook my rice on the stove. Sorry, it’s how my dad taught me to cook rice.
No room mate stories, I went from family home to marriage home. I did cossign for a family member’s phome one and they didn’t pay, I think it went to collections because I was only 19 at the time and I could barely pay what little bills I had.
February 28, 2008 at 4:42 am |
I’ve never had a roommate either. I went right from mom and dad’s house to moving in with Hubby – and he’s been a pretty good roommate these past 11 years –
Ahhhh – so now I’m able to figure out why you were asking me about my favorite restaurant. I was thinking that you were needing help with an idea for a story. Too funny. And you are right…using a knife while making cookies is just something a person normally would not need to do…but have you ever tried to open one of those premade cookie dough tubes? They are brutal to open up without a good sharp knife…and that was my first mistake that day…
Anyway…thanks for choosing my name as a winner! How exciting!
February 28, 2008 at 7:44 am |
Danette: well, I’ll venture a guess that you do clean the stove now and again! My roommate never (not once time in a year) cleaned the stove.
Becki: I have e-mailed Buffalo House to see if they do gift certs, but no response so far. Now that you now why I was asking, do you have a preference? Maybe something new you wouldn’t normally try?
BTW, I think it’s delightful that neither of you have Roommate-from-Hell stories about your husbands. I could tell a bunch of stories about mine, but they’re more funny than awful.
February 28, 2008 at 8:52 am |
Oh, man. This one’s my meat. If I had time, I could tell you at least a dozen more roommate stories (all those years in grad school). Heck, I’ve been someone’s “roommate from hell”. But I don’t think I’ll tell that one. She brought out the worst in me, and I try to keep my worst off the internet. Besides, it’s kinda embarrassing all these years later.
Let’s see. Odd how many of the stories have to do with (not) cleaning. There was the guy who was transitioning from a halfway house (I’m not sure what kind, but it had something to do with mental/emotional problems.) He taught me what “passive-aggressive” means. When screening roommates, I’d make sure everyone was OK with doing housework on a rotating basis, including the specific expectations. He never–not once–did it when his turn rolled around without me nagging him. And then he’d get snarky about me being a nag. I had the choice of being the bad guy, or of letting him not do his share. I chose bad guy–but seriously resented being put in a “lose-lose” position.
There was another woman in the house, slightly older and somewhat motherly in demeanor. She lent him a sympathetic ear a few times, and from then on he wanted LOTS of attention from her. He used to stand outside her door and sigh loudly, trying to get her to come out and ask him what was wrong. For up to half an hour at a time. Drove her nuts. (does that count towards “roommate from hell” since that part was her hell and not mine?)
But possibly the worst from that era of my life was another guy with cleaning issues. He did his share in the common part of the house–but never cleaned anything in his room. He left dirty pans and dishes and half-eaten meals lying around all over. But that’s not the part that puts him in the competition. I have a high tolerance for other people’s mess if it’s not in my space. My mother had a stroke that year, and I decided to have her come live with me when she got out of rehab. She was paralyzed on the right side of her body and in a wheelchair, so she had to be in the only downstairs bedroom–which was the one he was in. So I gave him notice (over 30 days, if I remember correctly), including telling him why. I thought I had a pretty compelling reason, myself, but apparently he didn’t. The date I’d given him rolled around, and he was still in the room. So we had a nice loud confrontation, I told him he had to be out within a few days or I’d stack his stuff out by the road. He claimed to have not understood that he really had to leave, and did get his stuff out of the room. BUT left an old Corvette he said he intended to restore in the garage. The car blocked access to the room my Mom was going to use. Repeated calls telling him to get the car out of the garage went ignored. The day came we (my brother and his wife, several friends, and I) were moving Mom’s stuff into the room, from a town about 100 miles away. Left another message indicating the car had to be moved that day, and why. Got to the house around 8 PM–car still there. So I called, got him on the phone, and told him to come over and get the car out of the garage, and we began moving in the small stuff that could come in through another door. Two hours and several phone calls later, the car was still there. My memory gets hazy around here, but I think I went into a meltdown. I was ready to smash the window of the car (which was locked, or it’d have been gone already, trust me) so we could take the emergency brake off and roll it out. Mom had to be out of the place she was in the next day, and I was seriously worried the room wouldn’t be ready for her (and my blood sugar was low–not good). My friends persuaded me not to to engage in any vandalism, however (I have some good friends), and eventually we got hold of his brother, who managed to get the guy to come over and unlock the car and roll it out to the street, so all ended well. The car sat there for weeks–long enough for the police to put various notices on it and threaten to impound it. I think he did eventually come get it and haul it away, but he certainly won my “worst roommate” sweepstakes!
OK, does that at least put me in contention?
February 28, 2008 at 12:19 pm |
Lol. I do.The bad thing about being Asian is I cook Adobo and Shoyu Chicken and the soy sauce boils over everytime and it is no fun cleaning it up. It’s worst than the rice.
February 29, 2008 at 7:55 am |
Back when I was young and wild, I lived in Greenwich Village with 2 other young and wild friends, one man, one woman. We were all very close and living together nearly KILLED us. Anyway, our place was a one bedroom walkup with a loft, a hallway bathroom, and a shower in the kitchen. But who cared, right, I mean, we lived in the VILLAGE.
Anyway, my guy friend was a taxi & limousine cop, and he had tons of police friends, who he brought over. No biggie. One day, I was home from work and taking a shower (in the kitchen, remember), and in comes my friend with about half a dozen of his buddies. These are NY cops, a pretty wild bunch if you ask me.
He hears me in the shower and says they’ll be just a minute.
I had to stand in the shower for 15 MINUTES while he and his buddies hung out or whatever they were doing. Needless to say I was freezing and pruny by the time they left.
This is only a small part of the torture that was my Village experience, but further stories would only damage reputations. Let’s just say that sex, drugs, rock & roll and a tiny apartment with 2 roommates don’t mix.
Before that, my best friend, cousin and I lived together for a while in a very nice apartment in Queens. Cousin and friend thought they liked each other, but ended up HATING each other. They had different ideas on things like say BORROWING CLOTHES and how to handle anger (one was passive aggressive, the other explosive).
Happiest day of my life was getting my OWN place. I highly recommend it…
March 8, 2008 at 8:19 am |
Okay, that? About the rice-making, and not washing the dishes, and leaving the rice scum all over the stove? Is not at all cool. I would die…simply DIE…if I’d have that girl for a roommate!