i’ve lived out of my parents’ house for the better part of ten years, and think i do pretty well. but there are things that I completely fail at, and generally all the female roommates i have ever known fail at, too. and now that I have a boy around the house so much, I am more aware of our short-comings in some particular areas:

this is what i see.
this is what i see.
this is what is actually there...
this is what is actually there…

1. spiders. 

i have to drink a glass of wine before killing a really big one. and they move so fast! i call for a roomie to keep an eye on it and track it around the room, because i usually freak out the second my shoe or rolled up newspaper makes contact. and why do they always come after you when you aren’t wearing your glasses, or in the shower?

2. bad landlords.

this be my landlady.
this be my landlady.

we have a total bad word as a property manager. her name is carla, and she is made of slime. her heart is two sizes too small. she never comes around to check in or help fix anything, she sends nasty emails, BUT never returns any calls or emails we write her, like when we needed to add a new roommate to the lease! she still doesn’t have jill on there, and she’s lived here for 16 months! my boyfriend is like “call her/email her/find out who the owner is and let them know how terrible she is.” and i’m over here like “umm i don’t want her to yell at me!”

3. rodents of unusual (or usual) sizes.

rodents of unusual sizes
rodents of unusual sizes

we had a smell in the garage that we ignored for the better part of a month before we finally had someone’s dad do a little heavier investigation. he pulled out a HUGE rat from under our water heater, where it had died from poison. i only saw the iphone picture, and wanted to pass out. especially thinking about all the laundry i had done right next to the corpse!

4. meat.

yeah baby. @racheldangerw
yeah baby. @racheldangerw

my boyfriend inquired of me a few months into our relationship, “do you ever eat anything besides chicken nuggets?” um…no…no I don’t. this is partially a budget thing – there is only so much meat a single girl can eat. but also because my dad did all that meat stuff on a grill when i was growing up, and the blood thing is scary. no tengo a BBQ or a dad around, so…nuggets in the microwave it is!

5. fire

turns out you can’t just throw anything you think might burn into your fire pit…there are things like ash and wind to think about. oh, and chemicals.

6. clogged things.

hair is beautiful when it’s on our heads, but the moment it spirals around itself in a pipe somewhere and ruins our plumbing? we want nothing to do with it. or the hair on the sink, in the shower, on the counter, the couch, your food, etc. if we keep ignoring the problem, won’t it all just sort itself out?!

i would never!
i would never!

7. confrontation.

women don’t like confrontation. i once had roommates who broke the lock to my room while I was on vacation, drank all the alcohol I’d gotten as a present for my 21st birthday, had sex in my bed, and then did coke on my desk.

did I ever say anything? No. I wrote a note on my door. “Please stay out if locked. Thanks.”

women prefer to be really passive-aggressive about our communication about any issue. give us a dry erase board and we’ll leave all sorts of vague hints about what we really need from you! On the other hand, boys are very straight up about owing each other money, problems with chores and cleaning, etc.

HOWEVER, there are things that I am good at, that I bet boys aren’t.

  1. making my bed.
  2. cleaning my room.
  3. baking.
  4. not going to the gym and drinking wine and eating brownies with you because you’ve had a bad day.
  5. telling you how great you look in that outfit.
  6. saving you from creepy guys at bars.
  7. sharing my food with you.
  8. burning candles so the house smells good.
  9. decorating for holidays.
  10. throwing themed parties.

my list of goods is longer than my bads! yay. maybe next time I need a roommate, I’ll just post this blog on craigslist.

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