I came home from work the other day and my two roommates were sitting shirtless in our living room, eating massive La Salsa burritos and watching “Super Troopers” at our six-foot long folding table, which we bought expressly for the purpose of playing beer pong this past weekend. For the record, we own no other furniture.
No, I don’t live with the two most laid-back girlfriends in existence.
I, in fact, live with two very ordinary boys. (Note to B and K: I’m lying to them. You’re extraordinary. Please don’t lock me out tonight.)
To tell you the truth, my mother wasn’t immediately thrilled when I announced my intention to live with boys. She is, after all, an Asian mother, distrustful of anything XY that comes in proximity with her one and only little girl. I’m sure my brother’s incredulity at my decision didn’t ease her concerns. And hell, my dad is still in the dark. As a man who finds V-neck shirts scandalous, he’d probably think: co-ed living today, prostitution tomorrow.
How can I accurately describe life with two of my best friends? I made a spinach-pineapple smoothie, and not only were they thoroughly unimpressed that I could make a tasty vegetable-fruit concoction, they were thoroughly disgusted, and went on to deliberate the hue of excrement that the consumption of green liquids might cause.
To say the least, the maturity level in our apartment is overwhelming.
We have an “Animal House” poster gracing the white space above our fireplace. They insist on leaving a flashlight turned on through the night atop our mantel because it “looks sick.” I mean, I guess.
I tried to make a case for the Disney princesses to join John Belushi, but they wouldn’t have it. I’m thinking my Jack Bauer poster might fly, but who knows? Considering framed pictures of myself were effectively banned in the apartment, there may be an application process for wall space I haven’t yet learned about.
In their company, I — once a serial cook — have all but forgotten how to grocery shop. At Ralphs, I tried to convince them for a solid five minutes that they would not be able to differentiate between brown and white eggs. I have been to the store three times this week and still, the only food to my name is a box of granola and some ground turkey.
They remind me with more frequency than my own mother does of my very obvious need for physical activity (exact words may or may not have been: “You remind me of my soup … chunky!”).
Of course, there are perks. My participation in my bedrooom furniture’s assembly during the move-in process, for example, was purely observational. They also drive, do all heavy lifting and train me not to take offense at anything. Feminism took a stab last week as I sat around uselessly and allowed the two of them to do things I am perfectly capable of doing, like screwing my light bulbs in and testing which outlet goes with the switch.
Sometimes, they make me want to hurl myself off my second-story loft. Someone will leave the kitchen sink clogged with God-knows-what in the nonconfrontational hopes that I will, as Official Domestic Queen of the Apartment, volunteer to take on the dirty deed. There will be dishes in the sink with saucy, crusted-over remains of questionable origin for one too many days before I resign from my silent — and unacknowledged, I might add — protest and break out the Dawn for a scrub session.
After I gave an exasperated, motherly lecture about the frequency with which we all must do dishes, the two of them have simply decided to go the paper-and-plastic route from here on out. Sorry green police, but this environmentally unfriendly option disturbs me less than the potential that fruit flies will join me for breakfast.
And then there’s the kicker. Time after time — and really, people, it’s only been two weeks — I will use the restroom, only to discover a forlorn cardboard toilet paper roll remaining, completely devoid of the toilet-paper part. I once loudly mentioned K’s lack of enthusiasm for replacing the damn thing to a friend who was over at the apartment. From his room, K yelled shamelessly, “And that’s the way it’s going to be!”
It’s times like those when I start wondering why in the world I agreed to live in this animal house.
But then there are times when I come home from campus after an exhausting day, and K comes up to my room, two beers in hand, to talk about absolutely nothing. Or when I bring them each platefuls of steamed dumplings, and they beam at me with matching faces, like first graders on Christmas morning who just got the Lego set they were dying for. And when, in the middle of the night, the two of them start ricocheting ping-pong balls off the ceiling and into my loft — to see who can hit me squarely in the ass. That’s when I remember exactly why.
