Ah, the joys of roommates! I’ve had many roommates since I moved out on my own, and I’ve found roommates come in all shapes and sizes, with every kind of temperament. Sometimes they come with strange environmental needs. I had one who wanted to wear shorts in the winter and sweaters in the summer. After struggling with him all summer over setting the thermostat on 68, which I found much too cold for comfort, I thought finally we’d find some agreement when it got cold, but no, then he wanted it set on 76, which was sweltering for me.
It’s easy to gripe about roommates, but the truth is I like living with people, even roommates. Still, I’m amazed by them sometimes, and I’m gonna gripe about them from time to time, no matter how much I love them. For instance, roommates generally are possessed of certain philosophical beliefs—commonly, that the natural state of a dish is dirty. Being appalled, as good right-thinking people everywhere are, of all things unnatural, they are loathe to put dishes into the unnatural state of cleanliness. This I can live with, if I can train them to stack the natural dishes in a fashion which still allows me the use of the kitchen, and I’ve had several roommates who were tractable in this manner—but then there were the two roommates, living with me at different times, who independently discovered there were magical, wonderful, dishwashing brownies in our kitchen.
No, I’m not talking about well-trained ten-year-old girls—though perhaps that organization could institute a merit badge, or whatever it is they give out, for this task and thereby make parents’ lives everywhere easier. No, I’m talking about those mysterious entities inhabiting certain households, specifically households composed of several non-related young adults and possessing neither an automatic dishwasher or a double kitchen sink.
In order to bring out these brownies, they found they must first fulfil a ritual formula consisting of piling all the dirty dishes in the sink and then filling it with soapy water. After that, they discovered they had to go away and not peek because the brownies wouldn’t come and do their thing if they stayed around. In fact, to ensure the formula worked, they would leave the house entirely, go away and not come back for hours, and when they returned, they found the dishes were magically washed and ready for them.
Perhaps you, too, have roommates, and you would like utilize those magical, wonderful, dishwashing brownies in your own kitchen, but beware—the brownies are happy at being used so crudely, and unless you leave offering of a ten dollar bill beside the sink, one day you may come home to find all those greasy, soapy, dirty dishes adorning your bed. That’s what happened to the brownie-abusing roommates I knew.
****
Posted by HECK