Various and Sundry Short Stories
Nightmare Roommate
These stories come from living with the most horrible person ever for two excruciatingly long years. The Butter Story is probably the best. The rest are mainly my passive aggresive way of getting revenge on her for putting me through hell.
VARIOUS SHORT STORIES
HOW MUCH IS THAT PAMPERED CHEF PAN IN THE WINDOW
Nightmare Roommate constantly bought stuff just for the sake of buying stuff. Our kitchen was full of it. Pampered Chef crap mainly. I eventually
had to put all my pots and pans into storage because I gave up trying to rearrange my ever decreasing storage space.
But then again, Pampered Chef, although pricey, is generally good quality bakeware. I have friends that swear by it and say they use it all
the time and it really holds up to heavy testing. So it was a good investment for Nightmare Roommate.
If she cooked on a regular basis. Which she didn't. Ever. Cook.
In the two years I lived with her, not one single solitary dish.
Hundreds of dollars worth of unused cookware and bakeware sprawled out in a kitchen. A kitchen that was effectively unusable for
me. Damn Nightmare Kitchen.
Anyhow, since she never cooked, her mother would constantly bring over food in Cool Whip containers and leave them in our fridge.
They would sit for months in there. She never touched them.
Now, I was never comfortable saying anything because she once literally screamed at me after I threw away some fresh pasta of
hers that was 6 months old and not so fresh. So I would patiently wait for her to realize that the smell building up in the fridge was in fact
her crap.
Finally, when the fridge got to be just unbearable, I would give in: "Umm... gee golly gosh. I think your food has gone bad".
And she would always say, "That's not mine. That's yours."
So I would repeat the phrase I used every friggin' time this would happen:
"Is it possible that your mom brought it over for you? Remember she's done that before?"
And then she would suddenly remember, oh yeah, her mom did bring over food and get her butt off the ugly blue couch and finally
throw it away.
And I would have to spend way too much time and money on baking soda and cleaning products to get rid of the Nightmare Smell.
WELFARE PEOPLE ARE WORTHLESS
Nightmare Roommate doesn't have the capacity to read people in the slightest. Ever met one of those people? They'll say incredibly
rude or unkind things and not understand when other people get upset or taken aback. Her usual starting phrase was, "Not to be mean but...".
Which meant she was about to say something mean.
Which is why she has not received one promotion at her job. She is 28 and in the buying office of Dayton's at an entry-level position.
She should have been promoted several months after we moved in together. I remember her talking about being able to really afford rent around
Christmas because she would be promoted. She's still waiting. You know why? 'Cause she has no people skills. She is uncouth, brash, and uncaring.
She told me this story once about how she brought in some cookies to share with her coworkers that her mom had made. Except she
told everyone that they could only have certain cookies on the plate. Several kinds were off limits. Then, when someone accidentally took one
of her sacred cookies, she told me she went around and bitched everyone out for stealing her cookies.
Who does that? Seriously. Bring two plates or something. If I were her boss I don't think I'd promote her either. Who'd want her
for a Nightmare Manager?
She once told me another story about a woman on welfare that she had a college class with. They were in a group working on a project
and the woman could not afford to contribute to the printing/binding fee at Kinko's.
So NR screamed at her in front of everyone and literally told her she should be able to afford it since the college was paying
for her to go there on a full scholarship. To quote NR: "I mean, where is all her welfare money going anyway?"
She was shocked when the rest of the group didn't support her on this argument. She thought she had a pretty valid point.
I couldn't say anything. What do you reply to that? "You're so right, NR. She was probably a crack whore, too." I think all I could manage was "Wow." Which she thankfully interpreted as my tacit approval of her stance.
I personally found it amusing that she would be so indignant about this woman getting money to help her out when NR was constantly
demanding money from her parents for rent and clothing and credit card bills, not to mention that she paid less rent than I did because she couldn't
afford it.
But apparently that's a whole different situation.
KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
Nightmare Roommate often attended weddings/family events/etc. And she would primp like mad. She would spend over several hours
in the bathroom showering and putting on make-up. Then she would spend another hour getting dressed. She had this body sock or some sorta device
to minimize her heft, which kind of helped not very much. And she made sure to wear and point out her three pieces of Tiffany jewelry. Every time.
Mind you, all this preparation was not an attempt to look nice when she went out. It was part of it, but the main goal was to
look better and wealthier than everyone else. She told me this. Every time.
Way to have a solid basis for your self esteem, Nightmare Roommate.
She may have been wearing some designer pieces, but no matter how much bling she was sporting, her ugly personality always overshadowed
everything else.
You can't hide that, no matter how much Tiffany jewelry you wear.
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