Roommate Horror Stories

[shaad]

Some time ago, when Orpheus was having his chicken patties stolen by his roommates from his refrigerator, I promised him I'd post some of my own roommate horror stories from my college and grad school days. Seriously though, these aren't really horror stories, just accounts of some of the eccentric roommates that I've had. So here they are (names have been changed to prevent myself from being sued somewhere down the line):

The Unintentional Pyromaniac or Why I Had 32 Saucepan Lids

During the second year of my PhD at Stanford, the room draw put me in a triple with K, a nice Indian lad doing his PhD in Civil Engineering. We got along famously, except that every other week or so, the fire alarm would go off, and I would rush into our kitchen to see K's food on fire. Basically, K would start cooking something (generally some veggie dish or other), then go off to read a book or surf the Net, and forget about it entirely... until, of course, the smoke set off the fire alarm. He or I was always able to extinguish the fire, but suffice it to say that the saucepan with its non-stick surface was always destroyed. The lid almost always survived. K, being a very decent fellow, would always apologize, and buy me a new saucepan. At the end of that year I counted the extra lids I ended up with... there were 32.

[shaad]

The grad school apartment that K and I were sharing was a triple; but for the first month, the third bedroom was vacant. Then, I biked in from lab one evening, and even without seeing him, even without entering our apartment, I knew we had a third roommate... I could smell him. He introduced himself to K and me as E, a doctoral student in Economics who had done his undergrad at Berkeley. As politely as we could, we asked E if he wanted to take a shower.

"No," said E, "I think this notion of taking baths or showers daily is simply a bourgeois class affectation. I see no reason to subscribe to it."

A little less politely, we pointed out that he smelled. He told us the smell didn't bother him.

At that point, K and I decided to stop being polite. We told E that we too had our own belief systems, that we believed in participatory democracy, and that we were going to give him a hands-on example of it. He might consider it mob-rule, but from our perspective it was what we called it, participatory democracy. Briefly, we grabbed his key, locked him out, and told him we would only let him in if he promised to shower every day. Now the Bay Area is pretty sunny and warm during the day, but in the evening it gets quite nippy, and it wasn't long before E agreed to our conditions.

So now that E was a little more domesticated, we had some more conversations with him. We learned that he was an anarchist at heart, and that his sole reason for wanting to do a PhD in Economics was to destroy capitalism from within. He didn't have any plan or strategy yet, but that presumably would come to him. Oh, and that he didn't believe in the concept of personal or private property.

We hastened to point out to him that K and I both subscribed to the concept of personal property and inquired whether he might need another example of participatory democracy to further clarify that point. Suffice it to say that E once again decided to respect our views.

Just because E respected our claims to personal property did not mean he had given up his views. K and I were surprised to learn that E and another friend of his from Berkeley had been arrested for putting his theory into practice at the Stanford University Book Store (I believe the technical term is "shoplifting").

Of course, when it was time for him to appear in court, E decided to go on a vacation in Mexico instead. When he did show up finally at court to set a new date, the judge decided to hold him in jail until his trial date.

E was excited: "Now I can see how the other, oppressed half lives close up."

I tried to contain his excitement. "E," I said, "now that you're taking showers regularly, you come across as a cute boy. Are you sure you want to see how the oppressed half lives, as you say... close up?" But nothing could suppress his enthusiasm.

Until, of course, his mother woke me up with a phone call at 3:00 AM the following day, saying E wasn't finding prison that pleasant, and asking me if I could bail him out. I thought it over: E's bail had been set at $1000; E didn't believe in the concept of personal property. It took me all of two entire seconds. "Sorry, Mrs. ______," I said, "I'm a poor foreign student from Bangladesh; I can't."

[Tintin]

Good stuff

[Nasif]

E's story was great

[shaad]

There's another story about E, probably even more amusing; but I don't think it's quite appropriate for our G-rated forum.

[ammark]

Originally Posted by shaad
There's another story about E, probably even more amusing; but I don't think it's quite appropriate for our G-rated forum.

Aww shucks. I'd love to hear it though. The anecdotes you've provided are most entertaining.

[One World]

horror oh yes.
I had roommates from south korea, japan, india and bangladesh. the most annoying roommate was the bangladeshi buet student. the horror - never cleaned the sink, toilet, carpets, dishes. never cared about cooking when we were sharing meals. thanks lord in two months this nightmare was over...he left to another bd roommate.

[Rabz]

Originally Posted by shaad
There's another story about E, probably even more amusing; but I don't think it's quite appropriate for our G-rated forum.

I can share stories about E and E-related effects too....
oh... there are lotta kids on this forum these days...
no need to corrupt the young minds with the benefits of pharmaceutical products...

[tonoy]

oh come on. I love the E stories. And love the satirical tone of the passage. It felt as though I can almost hear your voice. Now I know why stanford is well regarded.

[sadi]

Loved the stories. Keep them coming.

[afrina]

super stories.

[Puck]

there had been too many horror stories over the last fifteen years and it would take up much bandwidth to go through it all in detail. the most amusing was the albanian violinist who was convinced he was a musical genius. truth be said, he was the recipient of a famous scholarship but was rather terrible with money management. he also had a penchant for a certain type of girlfriends. when the landlord decided to refurbish the house with new furniture and carpet, unbeknown to us, he decided to to christen each our our rooms, including the bathroom and kitchen through some horizontal tennis with his girlfriend. when another housemate found out he punched through his bedroom door..