Finding good roommates is always easier said than done.
In the past three years I’ve had seven roommates, all with different personalities. They’re like the seven dwarfs: I’ve lived with Bitchy, Moody, Smoky, Crafty, Chatterbox, Grouchy and Steve.
Really, I’ve coexisted with all colors of life. My roommates have been younger than me, older than me, male, female, fellow and non-Aztecs, college graduates and college dropouts. They have all had a different major and different views on how and when to do the dishes.
My freshman year I lived with one dwarf. Everything was great, so we decided to continue living together the following year, along with two friends we had met in the residence halls.
In the beginning, things were fine. Then real life settled in. One night Moody picked the lock on my bedroom door while I was asleep so she could use my bathroom because it was cleaner than hers. Another time, Smoky left her two German friends at the apartment while she went to work. They refused to speak English, so it was just a whole lot of awkward.
My biggest qualm was their idea of interior decorations. While I was away one weekend, the three of them decided to paper mache a gigantic sun on our dining room wall out of pink, red and orange construction paper. They also decided to paper mache the word “namaste” in the kitchen, which is a word of peace people usually say after doing yoga exercises. Except no one in that apartment actually did yoga.
It was an eyesore for sure, but eventually it was impossible to see through the haze created by Smoky’s marijuana habits.
When the lease ended, we all agreed it was best not to live together again and went our separate ways.
Last semester I moved all the way to Hillcrest to live with a high school friend. She had bright pink hair, loved to make crafts and lived with another roommate she had found on Craigslist. Crafty also loved to sing to her organic strawberries, which she was convinced were going to college.
Later, she became romantically involved with a guy I will call Moses. Moses worked at a funeral home as an extra pallbearer when the deceased’s family didn’t have enough members to lift the coffin. At least he was nicely dressed all the time.
The other roommate loved anime, worked at a Check ‘n Go and always had the most interesting stories about the well-dressed hobo who slept in the shopping center. Apparently even some homeless people like Ed Hardy.
Unfortunately, she also had a cat. The cat smelled. I hated it. And I couldn’t mask the smell with my can of Oust because Crafty claimed to be allergic to air sanitizer.
Eventually, through sheer happenstance, I found myself moving to Clairemont to live with one of my work friends and his roommate.
So far, they have threatened to light me on fire and throw me over the balcony. They constantly make fun of me and I’ve been told that if I were kidnapped, they’d only start looking for me when the rent was due.
Still, there is no giant sun on the wall and no smelly cat. In fact, we even have some Glade PlugIns to make the house smell extra fresh.
At this point, I’ll take what I can get.
—Allie Daugherty is a journalism junior who loves all her dwarfs, no matter how strange they are.
—This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Daily Aztec.
