Savages

'He who makes a beast of himself

gets rid of the pain of being a man.'

Dr. Johnson as seen in 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'.

Dante: Somebody put gum in the locks

Randal: Buncha savages in this town.

Dante: That's what I said!

-Clerks

I've tried to avoid E/N (Everything / Nothing) posts but this one I feel deserves to be added to my blog. Especially when I factor the increased speed with which I am trying to depart my current residence. But first a little background: I live in a 3 floor house with 8 other 'adults', mostly the experience hasn't been too bad usual sort of stuff when you get that many people in one place for an extended period. We each have a room and there are three bathrooms, (which will go uncatalogued so as not to expose the squeamish to those conditions) a shared kitchen and a living room. I live on the main floor and it can be loud when a bunch of people are hanging out in the living room but with a few doors closed it's tolerable. And I keep later hours so it's not a problem, most of the time.

I am no stranger to unclean living space, any one that had the (mis)fortune of visiting me when I lived with Rich Watson knows what a bunch of guys and some apathy can do to a place. After all the bathroom doesn't need to be that clean and a layer of dust on pots and pans that no one uses isn't such a big deal, right?

And the various dorm rooms I've lived in during college where not up to surgical standards. They were ok at best and at worst 'wear shoes when using the bathroom' bad. But I did know people that were worse. There was a friend whose dorm you needed to be out of when the sun came in the window at about 10 am because the smell of urine and rotting beans in the bathroom was intolerable. It wasn't until we hung out most of a night that I realized why he always seemed to swing by at about that time. My room was the model of health when compared to his.

So I'm not OCD about cleaning, I wipe down surfaces and try to do my dishes, occasionally putting them away but since I tend to use the same few having them in a drying rack makes sense (to me).

Now the question might be posed, 'If this bugs you so much why don't you do something about it?' Simple: I'm not these people's mom. I do my dishes, clean up after myself and throw out my trash and recyclables. Like dealing with children once you start taking up the slack it becomes expected and like when I had a bathroom cleaning cold war with someone I ultimately lose. In this case I lose by bailing on my lease a month early (with luck) and getting a new place. Then there is the possibility I bring this up to the landlord but since I only know that most of the other people are doing this and not specific individuals no reason to punish others that are just trying to live out their leases and then cut and run.

In the past I've lived in places where things went missing occasionally. But it was usually returned, except in one case where Rich Watson stole my ketchup thinking it was his but that happens since we shared condiments (and some weird condiments we got from Food 4 Less), or some money left in its place. On one of the fridges a house mate has repeatedly put notes saying not to eat his food. Even if something has your name on it there is not guarantee that it's safe. Now if we were miles from a grocery store I could almost understand. It's late (or early) and starved so you snatch a bite of someone's food but we are 4 blocks from 2 grocery stores and one of them delivers groceries. If this were a co-op or people split costs of groceries or a situation like that it'd make sense but nothing like that had happened. To combat this I stopped buying things people seemed to enjoy or went about keeping more expensive items in my room until I wanted them. Not the situation I enjoy. But when the excuse I've gotten was, 'Oh someone else owed me money and I thought they were his' with promises to reimburse that never occur I can take only so much.

My plan is to move, maybe to this decent spot I saw the other day, maybe to another one I'm going to see soon but either way I'm getting the fuck out of this place. But there is something about having to search for something to put your breakfast in and ending up with a measuring cup. Not because you can boil water in it in the microwave without fear but because it's clean. That's how I like starting my day.

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