Kamran’s taking his LAST FINAL EXAMS OF LAW SCHOOL EVER this week, so he asked me to stay at my own apartment last night to give him the freedom to walk around his apartment in my pink slippers and recite his outlines to himself all night. My new roommate, Jack, had gone to the gym after work, so I sat watching girly things on his ginormous TV while sitting on a blanket to protect my butt from whatever might rub off from my couch.
See, my last boyfriend and I bought the couch from some dude off of craigslist five years ago when I moved here. It’s this Victorian-looking white silk-ish affair that’s abnormally long and comfortable to sleep on, which may explain why my last roommate chose to bed down on it for 6 months instead of buying himself a mattress when we moved in together. It didn’t exactly make it out of that situation looking its best–I’m talking unexplainable orange stains here, friends–so Jack and I have OxiCleaned it twice now, and while the OxiClean is totally annihilating those stains and actually making the couch whiter than it ever was, we evidently need to take some plain water to it now, because it’s leaving some weird white residue on whatever touches it. I paid all of $150 for it, so it’s definitely paid its dues, but it’s a one of a kind treasure with that grandma aesthetic I like so much.
Anyway, Jack came home around 9, and we went to Dallas BBQ for some touristy pulled pork and the “Lil'” onion loaf, which is the size and shape of the Pyramid at the Louvre. A roommate dinner is a real pleasure for me, because I’m pretty sure my last roommate and I went out to dinner together exactly once. (We went to plenty of other things together–concerts, movies, the grocery store–but dinner conversation is not something he could handle.) And then on the way back into the apartment building, we stopped to pick up a package from the lady at the front desk, and I decided that if we didn’t make friendly conversation with her right then, we were going to get stuck in that place where she says hi to us every day but nothing else because we never showed any interest in her otherwise. We ended up talking to her for a good half an hour, which is the amount of time I’ve talked to every single doorman in Kamran’s building combined over the past four years.
So by the time we made it back up to the apartment, I was feeling pretty great. And then I realized I had thrown out my toothbrush at my last apartment and not gotten a new one yet. Jack looked through his stolen hotel supplies for one, but I wound up rubbing some toothpaste on my teeth with my finger and telling Jack to never tell anyone what he’d seen. He went into his bathroom to get me a roll of toilet paper for my bathroom, and I said I didn’t need one yet, but he said, “Oh, I have plenty. My mom got them for me. It’s sooooooooo great having a mom.” And then he emerged brushing his teeth with one of those fancy high-powered wet-vac-type toothbrushes.
Meanest roommate ever.
27 Comments
And it’s not even like you can be like, “Yeah, well, NOT having a mom is EVEN BETTER.”
Hoo, boy.
Do you have room for TWO couch-sleepers at Yun New Digs?
Maybe I should insult his homeland and say, “Yeah, well, not having a POLISH mom is EVEN BETTER”?
We only have one couch, but I have a queen-size air mattress! I might have to run it by Jack if the other sleeper is a dog, though.
Both my dog and boyfriend have big, brown, beautiful, puppy-dog eyes, but I only cuddle up to one of them overnight, every night. And it’s not the one with the kibble breath. She sleeps on a nice, cozy dog bed, accompanied by Lumpy the Elephant.
I read your blogs every now and again mainly because it makes me think of your mom and the birthdays we had together….you may not remember those, but when mom would babysit you and your sister my mom would make a cake for me and your mom because both our bdays are april 25, there were only a couple times that happened, but i remember them. I love your mom, and when i ready what your roommate said, i teared up and found myself wanting to chop his head off!! LOL
I love your blogs, keep them up, your mom is proud of you, i know it :)
You mean you don’t read my blogs for their CUTTING WIT and INCREDIBLE INSIGHT about New York City and the world in general? Hmph.
I actually think I do remember that, and I can picture a photo we have somewhere of a birthday cake on a table and you standing behind it; maybe that was one of those shared birthdays. Neat! I love hearing from people who remember things about Mom.
Jack is a funny guy and only says things like that because he knows I’m slightly amused by them. And also because he likes for me to pretend to be offended and blog about him.
This is the corollary to “Even douchebags get cancer,” apparently. ;)
I didn’t even realize how much of a strong showing dead moms were making this week until you said that. Perhaps this is foreteller of the zombiemom uprising.
I totally have a history of making “your mom” jokes to people whose moms are dead. It happened to me more times than it should happen to someone. Like, you’d think the first time I got the stricken face, that would be enough for me. But no.
So I decided to turn the joke around. When a new friend at work made a “your mom” joke to me, I said, with a feigned stricken face, “my mom’s dead!” And he replied, “Oh, your mom’s dead, too?” with this tender, “now-we-can-share-our-feelings” face.
And then you had to construct an elaborate dead-mom coverup in which you had a fake newspaper printed with the funeral announcement in it, had your mom mail you a lock of her hair under the guise of your wanting your stylist to color your hair to match hers precisely but was really for you to frame and then show off to your co-worker, and had a headstone planted at the local graveyard with a fake death date filled in, which your mom later saw and disowned you for before you could explain the misunderstanding.
At least that’s what I would’ve done.
I do believe you and I have just stumbled upon a concept for … what, a film? Something reminiscent of Harold and Maude?
It’s at least one episode of a totally bizarre T.V. show.
You can have first writing credit (alphabetically, it works anyway), but we’re splitting profits 50/50.
p.s. I think I have approximately 100 different logins to your blog registered. I never know who I’m going to be when I comment. Let me switch computers and see who comes up ….
What’s wrong with Toothbrush-finger? It’s better than using a stray piece of velcro…
Oh, man! That’s a brilliant idea. I almost don’t want to go buy a toothbrush on my way home from work tonight just to ask some kid on the train if I can borrow his sneakers to scrub my mouth out with.
I knew I should’ve added a “What happens at the apartment, stays at the apartment” clause to the lease agreement …
You know I’d never reveal anything ACTUALLY defaming here.
SUCH AS WHAT HAPPENED THIS MORNING.
Just kidding. Winky face!
I like this Jack person. Next time I trek up to NY to visit friends, I think you should introduce me to him. So that he and I can gang up on you, naturally.
What do you mean–”to visit friends”? I AM YOUR FRIEND.
I AM YOUR ONLY FRIEND.
But yes, you would like Jack. And he would like you. Although I have to warn you that he makes fun of curly hair at least once a day, so I’m pretty sure you and I should be ganging up on him.
Ok, fine then. Let me rephrase: next time I trek up to NY to visit YOU AND ONLY YOU, KATIE ETT, I think you should introduce me to him. So that you and I can gang up on him with our curls, naturally.
P.S. Did you SEE the photos on FB of my new haircut? I look fabulous. Really, darling, it’s true.
I don’t do this so much anymore, but until about 5 years after my dad died, I’d enjoy myself by shitting on everyone’s parade… they’d be like, “OMG, my dad did this HILAAAARIOUS thing!” and I’d go “My dad’s dead.” I was FUN.
HA!
And also, the first time I read that, I saw, “They’d be like, ‘OMG, . . . this HILAAAARIOUS thing!’” And so I thought you meant that no matter what joyous thing someone might say, you’d always come back with the dead dad quip.
So you’re really a much nicer person than I assumed.
Oh my god. I used to be that person who’d say “Your Mom” to this guy I used to work with and he’d say, “My Mom’s dead.”
And I’d FORGET. ALL THE TIME.
I suck.
It’s so weird to me that some people have senses of humor about their dead parents and other people are like, “You called me on the anniversary of my mom’s death and weren’t in tears yourself, so now we have to stop being friends!”
Hopefully that guy was cool about it. Or else you’re a reeeeeal jerk.
When I had long hair, I would sometimes use a single strand as a piece of dental floss to get the space b/w my two front teeth squeaky clean. I start feeling anxious when I can’t suck air through them.
This is an excellent motivation to keep growing out my hair even when it overwhelms me. I had to borrow a strand of Tracey’s hair so many times in junior high and high school when mine was too short.
Also, I’m now jealous that my teeth-space isn’t big enough to suck air through. Maybe I need to get it spaced wider like those girls in “America’s Next Top Model” do in the name of fashion.
I’ve heard Oxi-Clean can get ink out of clothes… and really clean anything. Though I’m dubious about that white residue. What if it’s anthrax?
Also, I’m curious about this Dallas BBQ. I wonder why they chose Dallas at the BBQ city when it’s not really known for bbq… was it good?
If it can clean that couch, it can clean anything. If I wasn’t so horrified about the judgements that’d be brought down on me here, I’d show before and after photos. I’m sure the white residue is made of sunshine and butterflies.
Dallas is very much the sort of Times Square BBQ place that you go to for the only cheap-and-giant frozen drinks in the city, so they probably only named it that to attract tourists who think it seems homey. The food is fine, but there are much more authentic BBQ places we’d go to if this one wasn’t literally around the corner.
Oh my God.
You just wait till I tell Holy Marilyn, Mother of Guy about this.
You’ll have a care package full of TP, toothpaste, extra toothbrushes, dishwashing detergent, paper towels, Ziploc bags, Pantene shampoo and conditioner and hand sanitizer from Minden, Louisiana before you can say “surrogate mother.”
WE get them, and we only live 45 minutes away from her, for Pete’s sake.