Professional Whining

Okay, I don't use this as a forum to whine about my roommates very often because, frankly, I really like most of my roommates and I really like having roommates. But after the last month, I want some whine time and I think that this is the best place to whine with abandon.

My roommate landlords left late last month for three weeks. The rules were simple. My downstairs roommate would feed the cats. My across the hall neighbor would mow the lawn once a week. And I would make sure nothing else went wrong.

My across the hall roommate is messy. He only cleans up his stuff in the common areas because the landlord roommate gets really pissy with him if he doesn't. But as soon as she's in another state, my across the hall roommate forgets all that she has taught him. He never takes out the trash. He never puts his dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Hey, I'll unload the dishwasher, but can he at least put the dishes in it? He leaves the same pot on the stove every day, all day, to use to make pasta at night. He never washes the pot. He never gets the mail. Oh, wait. He did get the mail one day. But instead of bringing it inside and sorting it into the mail slots, he just throws in on the table for someone (me) to take care of.

Okay, fine. I got over the messiness. Okay, I didn't, but I was passive aggressive about it enough until I felt better.

One day I came home from Biker Boy's to find the front stairs ripped apart. I knew that the landlord roommates were going to have some work done on the stairs, but I was pretty sure they told the contractor to wait until they were back in the state. I call my landlord roommate and tell her that she has no front stairs. "Tell them to stop!" she wailed. "They've already done it." After a couple of hours of phone calls between me, her, and the contractor, the workers come and clean up and leave us with half a staircase. I call the across the hall roommate, "hey, was anyone working on the house this morning before you left for work?" "Oh, yeah, they were just getting started when I left." "Did you think that the landlord roommates would be cool with that?" "Oh, I didn't think about it." Obviously.

One day I came home at about 1 in the afternoon and couldn't find Emma, the little tiny girl cat. The big fat orange one was begging for food, being his usual obnoxious self, but Emma was MIA. I go around with the food container, shaking it, causing the poor orange cat to go into near convulsions of excitement over the unscheduled feeding time, hoping Emma would be enticed out of her hiding place. Eventually I hear a tiny, "mew...mew...mew..." from behind roommate across the hall's door. Emma had been locked in his room all day since my roommate had left for work at nine in the morning. I wrote a note to my roommate, making sure he knew that if there was any cat piss in his room, it was his fault and not Emma's.

I'm not even going to tell you the story about how he left the door open when he was told to keep it closed and the cat pissed all over everything and how I smelled like vinegar for two days.

Enter the start of this past week. It's been hot here in Minneapolis, folks. I think today is the sixth day in a row of above-90 temperatures. I can't take it. I'm a bit grumpy to begin with because of the weather and then Thursday happened.

Okay. I'm taking a deep breath as I write this.

I come home from work around 1 pm. I see the cats in the kitchen, I sing to them, dance a bit around them as a get a class of water, and as I head out to the living room, I see a strange man on the couch. "Who are you?" "I'm George, friend of roommate across the hall." I swivel my head dramatically. "Where's roommate across the hall?" "Oh, he went to work." "Ohhhh..."

Why wouldn't it occur to my roommate to call me and let me know there would be a strange man in my house before I came home and made a fool of myself singing to the cats?

Then, later on, roommate comes home and he and "George" (if that is indeed his real name) leave for lunch or something. Next thing I know there's another man in the living room. "Who are you?" "I'm Charlie, roommate across the hall's brother." This one I understand. "Oh, you're the new roommate." "Yep." But I still have a question. "How did you get in?" "Oh, roommate across the hall left the front door unlocked so I could get in." "He left the front door unlocked? And didn't tell me?"

Okay, after that, I lost track of the number of men who came into my house. Someone was getting married. So there were lots of men. I wanted to scream. Men. Charlie moving his stuff in. 90 degree temperatures. A drunken stupor outside my house on Thursday night involving a drunk bridegroom and a bottle of Scotch. By Saturday night, I was going to absolutely lose it.

But, here's the interesting part. The landlord roommates came home!!! I almost cried with relief when I saw them. And the kitchen was clean for the first time in three weeks.

There are still a million men in this house. But I have taken over control of the downstairs television. If they want to watch "Engaged and Underage" with me, fine. Otherwise, get out of the living room.

I am only living here for another month and a half. Biker Boy and I are moving in together. And while I have enjoyed living here, I can say that the next month and a half had better go by pretty damn quickly.