Fifteen years ago, my boyfriend, T, and I decided to move in together to an apartment in the big city. To save on costs, we asked a mutual friend from the internet, L, to move into the two-bedroom apartment we had selected. We knew her as part of our social circle, but you don’t really get to know someone until you live with them, and we were wrong, wrong, wrong.

L was perennially short of money. All of the bills were in my name, except for cable, which was in hers. A few months into our lease, when the cable wasn’t working and she’d claimed that it was due to technical issues, I called and found out that it had been shut off due to non-payment. She borrowed my car without asking, several times, until I started sleeping with my keys. She ate our food and denied it.

When L lost her job in a grocery store deli, I was waiting tables at a restaurant where you have to wear pins with pithy sayings on them. I begged, and they hired my roommate immediately as a hostess. Around the same time, she started importing guys from the internet to “spend the night” in her room, and when they’d leave; she’d suddenly have enough money for rent. One time, L had a guest and chose not to go into work, or even to call in sick. I tried to make her excuses, but she was fired.

It was Superbowl Sunday, a very busy day, and I had to work a double shift that day. I was bone tired and dirty and hungry when I finally got home, and thinking with longing about sitting in the bathtub with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. I knew it was in the freezer when I left home that morning, so I was sure that it was still there. No, she’d eaten it all and put the empty container back in the freezer.

Things were tense for months, and when she moved out while T and I were at a baseball game, we were mostly relieved. Unfortunately, she took all of my good pots and pans with her. She disappeared from our social circle, but a few years ago, I heard that she took her little habit of meeting men online and getting money for her “services” to a more professional level in her hometown.

My year of MVWR hell started on day one. I was living in a 3/2 apartment during my sophomore year of college when my friend D from high school and his friend J came to live with me. J was cool, but D was an absolute nightmare. Prior to moving in, he asked if he could bring his one cat and I agreed. On D-day, he arrived with his one cat, the cat’s sister, and her six kittens! And to make things worse, he already owed me over $400 for rent, utilities etc. After arriving, the bastard only had $80 to his name, proceeded to give me 40 of it, and then nonchalantly informed me that he needed the rest for food. This is definitely one of the times I regret not consulting the magic 8-ball!

Things only got worse. The eight cats he kept coralled in his room decided to use his dirty pile of clothes and streek-marked tighty-whiteys on the floor as their litter box and filled the entire apartment with the stench of cat piss and crap. He then spent the next two weeks sitting on his “6″ watching my TV (when he was supposed to be looking for a job of course). He eventually managed to secure work at Taco Bell for five days before he decided that it just wasn’t for him. Meanwhile, his debt to me kept rising and the eight mangy cats succesfuly shredded not only the newly shampooed carpet throughout the apartment, but the covers to my brand-new tower speakers.

Why keep this idiot around one might ask? Well, if J and I could have afforded the place ourselves, we would have given him the boot. D’s answer to this financial dilemma (with him now earning a wopping $400 per month in 1999 at a local playhouse) was to invite his friend M to live with us too, thereby splitting expenses four ways instead of three (because this of course was the only way D’s sorry butt could afford to live there). M, of course, slept on the pull-out couch and promptly awoke at the first bit of sunlight to loudly play final fantasy on MY tv and my now-shredded speakers on most mornings. One time when I made the “mistake” of asking D for his portion of the bills, he actually threw his wallet directly at my face. He blamed low blood sugar. But wait, there’s more!

M’s cat got fleas somehow, and of course M could not afford the medicine as he was in penury. I ended up buying the poor cat’s medicine, and the fleas soon dissapeared. I added the cost of the medicine to his debt which I now realized will probably never be repaid. My requests to D and M (J pretty much stayed in his room all day eating ice cream and playing video games) to help out with the horrendous mess they created daily around the apartment went unanswered, effectively turning me into their maid. D also slept nude (don’t ask me how I found out!). And then his dad and brother visited for Thanksgiving!

His dad bought stuff for the meal and they cooked and ate it while I was at work (leaving nothing for me of course). I came home from work to find his dad standing in front of the TV–like he was expecting poltergeists to fly out at him at any moment. My new DVD player was definitely to his liking. Fast forward one week: I sat in the living room watching TV and J had returned to place his pizza in the pre-heated oven. The oven door openned, and I heard a loud, “Ooohhhh…Myyyyyyy…God!” As I looked over at the oven, I could plainly see the massive chia-pet that used to be a turkey still sitting in the oven. If it had been left in the oven any longer, it might have sprouted legs and impregnated us all with its spores as we slept. Or maybe it already had…

Things from that point onward pretty much remained as crappy as they had been since he moved in. Towards the end of the year, D decided to move out (as in, decided to leave before I could tell him his sorry debt-ridden butt had to go), taking M with him. Watching him leave was bittersweet. I was relieved to see him go, but was annoyed knowing that I would never see the $500 he owed me. The douche tried to “friend” me on Facebook awhile back. He probably needed some money or worse, a place to stay.

I currently live with MVWR, W. I’ve come to realize that it’s really not just W and myself that live at my apartment. It’s actually quite the paradise for all of “W’s” friends who are, coincidentally, unemployed.

My apartment turns into what I call, the UEP (unemployed playground) when I leave for work. W wakes up, presumably around 11 or 12, makes himself breakfast, eats it under the covers on the couch, and then calls his friends to come over.

Then one, maybe two or three of them show up, plunk their dirty asses down on the couch (which I’m strongly considering NEVER sitting on again) and watch TV/Movies/Sports and smoke blunt after blunt until its time to, surprise! EAT again…

They may go out to lunch, you know, spending that unemployment money wisely, but more than likely, they will be ordering in. I know this because of all of the wonderful take out containers that have made their way into my cabinets (still covered in oily grease btw)… Then, its time to smoke another blunt…

Now, if one of these dreamboat, super cool and productive friends of W’s has a car, perhaps a blunt cruise and a stop at the convenience store for some Arizona iced teas (which will be spilled either on the couch or on the floor shortly thereafter) and then rendezvous back to marinating on the couch for hours upon hours…

That is when I come home. I walk in after a 10-hour work day, house smelling like old asshole and blunt, the sink littered with dishes (that used to be in the dishwasher, but for some reason, W has decided to place on the counter) and the living room filled with refuse. And by refuse, I am referring to the 2-4 dudes who have done nothing all day except serve as an excellent examples of sloths personified…

And he wonders why I lock myself in my room/stock up on Febreeze/am gone as much as possible/avoid him. I cannot take living at the UEP anymore. I seriously cannot. But thankfully, the lease is up soon. May 31, may you come quickly for us all.