TRUE ROOMMATE STORY-FILTH TAKEN TO A NEW LEVEL
I think that I, along with one of my best friends, were the two
worst roommates ever. We were legendary for our filth.
It was our sophomore year that we decided to live together. Each
of us had problems the year before because the standards of our
previous roommates were way too rigorous.
The students in our all-male dorm were primarily underclassmen
so it was a pretty crappy place to begin with. You know how
those places are ... puke in the bathroom that sits there for
days; trash cans in the common areas filled with rotten food and
beer cans; that urine smell that pervades the entire dorm...Our
room was much, much worse. What started out as simply messy
turned into a biohazard.
It started out as a contest to determine who was lazier. We
thought it would be funny to see who could come up with the most
comically absurd way to do something with the least amount of
work.
It started with throwing the daily newspaper on the floor when
we were done with it. This being funny for all of two seconds we
progressed to empty pizza boxes and rough drafts of papers.
After a week we started adding our beer bottles and cans to the
mix. (Now you have to understand that we were drinking very
heavily. I was drinking nearly seven or eight quarts of Magnum
malt liquor a day, and he was contributing vast numbers of cans).
When cold season came around we would add our snot rags. When I
coughed up flim I would spit it onto the heap. It was not
unusual for one of us to drink too much and vomit in bed. In the
morning we would simply scrape the vomit onto the floor and turn
the mattress over (neither one of us used sheets).
I think that one night, after watching "Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer"
we decided that since we were living like cavemen our dorm room
should be as cave-like as possible. We got some black plastic
sheeting and covered the single window in our room, sealing it
with tape so that no light could get in. The downside was that
we could no longer open the window to let in fresh air. That's
when it began to stink. When rotten beer but sits out for a few
days it begins to smell like vinegar. All the half-drunk cans
lying around the room would get knocked over and spill this
foul, sticky sludge all over our already stinky stuff. Without
fresh air the room got even worse.
We soon had whole colonies of flies and roaches living in our
room, scurrying around like they owned the place. Being too lazy
to kill them, we had a rule that they would be eliminated only
if they crawled on us while we were awake. Barring that they
were free to do as they pleased.
One night after way too many beers I decided that walking across
the hall to the bathroom was too much work so I opened the door
and peed out into the carpeted hallway. This became a nightly
ritual.
I think that twice a month the exterminator would go from room
to room spraying for bugs. When he came to our room he would key
in, look around, and walk out. I guess he figured it was of no
use even trying.
The funny thing was that very few people knew we lived like
this. We were both preppy, clean-cut fraternity guys. All the
parties were at the house so nobody ever came to visit. Having
females over was out of the question but there were ways to work
around that.
Towards the end of the semester word began to get out and we
realized that while people were laughing eventually somebody in
Housing was going to get upset. We were concerned too about
leaving it over Christmas break. Who knew what would grow in
there while we were gone? The trash was thigh-high and walking
around in the room was nearly impossible.
It took us a solid day and a half to clean that ten by fifteen
foot room. The next semester was pretty bad but it never go like
it did before. The next year we moved into the fraternity house
and had different roommates, so we were never able to combine
forces again. But for that one year we really were the worst
roommates ever.