Welcome Mat
I love my sister. She's a great roommate.
OK, that's a lie. She's family. Which means I look the other way when she leaves dishes in the sink for weeks at a time, and she buys all the toilet paper and doesn't tell anyone when she comes home to find me sitting on the couch watching Love, Actually for the millionth time and crying like Demi Moore in Ghost.
And while living together has put a crimp in my sex life, as I feel weird being loud or bringing home strange men with my little sister in the next room, she and her long time boyfriend seem to have no such hangups, and can be found washing footprints off the walls in the hallway the day before I come back from a weekend away. Or on any given weekday morning. Ew.
I have learned to live with all of this. Have even learned to tolerate her asshole cat and her 3 foot iguana that has a tank that is bigger than my bedroom. (Nothing says 'conversation piece' in a gay man's home like a 45 cubic foot lizard tank in the living room. The conversation? Guests muttering amongst themselves as to the location of the nearest exit.)
The one thing I can't deal with? Her incessant leaving of the door unlocked. She runs to the store or upstairs to our cousin's apartment, and our door is left wide open for anyone who might want to wander in and help themselves to my thousands of dollars worth of electronics and DVDs. Or the macaroni picture frames her friends made for her. (Her College graduate friends made. For this past Christmas. Sigh.) You know, whichever might seem more attractive to potential thieves.
Yesterday my bosses (Who I have decided hate happiness and want to destroy every spark of it in their employees) let us out earlier than our normal 9:30 parole. I returned home, walked in and threw my keys on top of the lizard tank which also doubles as kitchen table, couch and rental unit for small migrant families, ready to settle in for some well deserved Simpsons and (all together now!) Law and Order.
It didn't occur to me to check the lock.
On the kitchen counter was my Zen Palate take out from last night, half eaten. My sister stayed at her boyfriend's in Brooklyn last night, but the food on the counter came as no surprise; all of her hippy friends have keys to our place, and I never know who will be emptying out my fridge or making my furniture smell.
It wasn't until I was in my room and half undressed that I realized said Hippy was still in the house. Curled up on my bed.
Now, while I know that my bed is much easier to get to than Sister's lofted monstrosity, I have serious bed issues. I have spent years testing and perfecting my bed by adding feather beds, mattress pads, comforters and pillows. I like my bed. I can not STAND anyone other than my significant other sleeping in my bed. And seeing as my bed has been empty as of late, I was not about to have my bed karma ruined one of Sister's dreadlocked bong pals.
Dan: Wakey wakey. Get out of my bed. Did Sister give you a key?
Hippy: (Stirring) Who?
Dan: Sister. My. Sister. Who lives here? And pays a lot less rent than I do?
Hippy: Who? (Now sitting up to reveal that she is not, in fact a hippy, but small blonde girl with remnants of my leftover Sesame Wheat Gluten smeared across her lips)
Dan: (Slightly stunned) Who the fuck are you?
Small Blonde Girl: Who the fuck are you? (The little bitch actually sneered at me. Have you ever seen a little girl sneer? Had she yelled certain accusations about my mother and a slightly paler complexion, I would have thought she was Reagan from the Exorcist...)
Dan: (Wondering if it's OK to slap Small Blonde Girl, pulling cell phone from pocket) I'm the guy calling the police.
Small Blonde Girl: (Springing from my bed and circling towards the door) (OK, I don't know how to write the literary equivalent of that shriek that only little girls under age 11 can achieve when they REALLY REALLY want to make your ears bleed. Kind of like a jet engine on helium scraping its nails on a chalk board while getting microphone feedback. In a Blender filled with stainless steel bolts.)
Despite my 3 mile run at the gym every morning, I was not able to outrun a little girl. I maintain that it was because I hadn't stretched properly, but honestly, who knew legs that short could move so fast? Or dodge the shoe I threw at her so adeptly?
My sister is so doing the dishes tonight.
OK, that's a lie. She's family. Which means I look the other way when she leaves dishes in the sink for weeks at a time, and she buys all the toilet paper and doesn't tell anyone when she comes home to find me sitting on the couch watching Love, Actually for the millionth time and crying like Demi Moore in Ghost.
And while living together has put a crimp in my sex life, as I feel weird being loud or bringing home strange men with my little sister in the next room, she and her long time boyfriend seem to have no such hangups, and can be found washing footprints off the walls in the hallway the day before I come back from a weekend away. Or on any given weekday morning. Ew.
I have learned to live with all of this. Have even learned to tolerate her asshole cat and her 3 foot iguana that has a tank that is bigger than my bedroom. (Nothing says 'conversation piece' in a gay man's home like a 45 cubic foot lizard tank in the living room. The conversation? Guests muttering amongst themselves as to the location of the nearest exit.)
The one thing I can't deal with? Her incessant leaving of the door unlocked. She runs to the store or upstairs to our cousin's apartment, and our door is left wide open for anyone who might want to wander in and help themselves to my thousands of dollars worth of electronics and DVDs. Or the macaroni picture frames her friends made for her. (Her College graduate friends made. For this past Christmas. Sigh.) You know, whichever might seem more attractive to potential thieves.
Yesterday my bosses (Who I have decided hate happiness and want to destroy every spark of it in their employees) let us out earlier than our normal 9:30 parole. I returned home, walked in and threw my keys on top of the lizard tank which also doubles as kitchen table, couch and rental unit for small migrant families, ready to settle in for some well deserved Simpsons and (all together now!) Law and Order.
It didn't occur to me to check the lock.
On the kitchen counter was my Zen Palate take out from last night, half eaten. My sister stayed at her boyfriend's in Brooklyn last night, but the food on the counter came as no surprise; all of her hippy friends have keys to our place, and I never know who will be emptying out my fridge or making my furniture smell.
It wasn't until I was in my room and half undressed that I realized said Hippy was still in the house. Curled up on my bed.
Now, while I know that my bed is much easier to get to than Sister's lofted monstrosity, I have serious bed issues. I have spent years testing and perfecting my bed by adding feather beds, mattress pads, comforters and pillows. I like my bed. I can not STAND anyone other than my significant other sleeping in my bed. And seeing as my bed has been empty as of late, I was not about to have my bed karma ruined one of Sister's dreadlocked bong pals.
Dan: Wakey wakey. Get out of my bed. Did Sister give you a key?
Hippy: (Stirring) Who?
Dan: Sister. My. Sister. Who lives here? And pays a lot less rent than I do?
Hippy: Who? (Now sitting up to reveal that she is not, in fact a hippy, but small blonde girl with remnants of my leftover Sesame Wheat Gluten smeared across her lips)
Dan: (Slightly stunned) Who the fuck are you?
Small Blonde Girl: Who the fuck are you? (The little bitch actually sneered at me. Have you ever seen a little girl sneer? Had she yelled certain accusations about my mother and a slightly paler complexion, I would have thought she was Reagan from the Exorcist...)
Dan: (Wondering if it's OK to slap Small Blonde Girl, pulling cell phone from pocket) I'm the guy calling the police.
Small Blonde Girl: (Springing from my bed and circling towards the door) (OK, I don't know how to write the literary equivalent of that shriek that only little girls under age 11 can achieve when they REALLY REALLY want to make your ears bleed. Kind of like a jet engine on helium scraping its nails on a chalk board while getting microphone feedback. In a Blender filled with stainless steel bolts.)
Despite my 3 mile run at the gym every morning, I was not able to outrun a little girl. I maintain that it was because I hadn't stretched properly, but honestly, who knew legs that short could move so fast? Or dodge the shoe I threw at her so adeptly?
My sister is so doing the dishes tonight.
posted by Dxx at 6:34 PM
VERY good entry in the Blogger Challenge! My hat's off to ya.