Glassy Act

My absolute Very Worst Roommate was a friend of mine from work. I met her during my training class and we got along well enough. We enjoyed much of the same music and we both frequented a somewhat divey bar downtown.

Just before Christmas, her jerky roommate pulled some drama and forced her out of the apartment. She had no family in the area and I was the only one of her friends that had enough space to have another person in their apartment. I figured it would be horrible for her to have to shack up in some nasty hostel at Christmas so I told her that she could pay a quarter of the rent and half the utilities since she wouldn’t be getting an actual bedroom but would be sleeping on my day-bed in my living room.

Well, as it turned out she was an alcoholic with an ulcer so she would barf neon green bile all over the bathroom and ONLY clean it up on the toilet despite the fact it was up the wall and behind the toilet and under the sink. She would also use really cheap black hair dye all over the bathroom and “miss” spots while she was cleaning it up.

She also ate all of my food, which was fairly high-end because I just prefer good quality food that has actual flavor. And considering I had to troop these groceries up a significant hill there was more than just the price of food to account for. What little she replaced she did with cut-rate brands and she never even bothered replacing my produce. She did buy inordinate amounts of ketchup even though I almost never use ketchup.

She also broke my glassware and plates. Most of which were vintage because I like collecting things like that. I’ve moved about eight times in the last ten years and never have I broken an item. Yet she lived with me for maybe two months and broke a third of my kitchenware. The worst had to be a vintage glass martini shaker that had recipes printed on it. It was about 1 litre and she used it (despite my protestations) as a water glass. She put it on the counter and it slipped off “somehow” and sheared off the bottom of it.

Oh, and whenever I’d come home to broken things and the oven still on while she was out of the house she would say “I think your apartment is haunted!” I convinced her to get the hell out shortly after that.

A month or so later, my mom and I were watching the Planet Earth series and saw a piece about these deepsea fish called Hagfish that are about the size of your forearm and prowl the depths looking for whale carcasses which they can strip down to bone in about a week. They’re nasty things and all covered with mucous and mom said, “wow that reminds me of [roommate whose name rhymes with Hagfish]!” We’ve called her that ever since.