You're supposed to yell "Freeze!" before blowing someone's head off!
The day before yesterday, my roommate informed me that she wanted to use the other half of my basement as a rumpus room and time-out chamber for the obnoxious and bloodthirsty kitten she purchased last month (yet doesn’t have time to care for). Yesterday after some thought I tried to veto the idea, not only feeling that it wouldn’t teach the cat much to have its playroom and its jail be the same location, but also fearing for my few belongings, which the kitten is already threatening to destroy. Five minutes after I’d voiced my concern, Sarah decided she doesn’t give a shit what I think and even less of a shit about my stuff, and told me to have my stuff out of the kitten’s new room by Tuesday. She also chose that moment to come out with every last miniscule thing that’s bothered her about having to live with me since we moved in here in November… mostly stuff I wouldn’t have known was bothering her unless I were Professor X, and the rest was filled in by issues that I thought we’d already laid to rest. I was told in the process that because I’m not on the lease, can’t pay more than $300 for my share of the rent, and can’t do more than clean the house, feed and care for her cats while she’s away (which is nearly all the time), mow the lawn, take out the trash twice a week, do the household’s dishes (80% of which aren’t mine), and dozens of other tasks… well, all that means that I have no rights in the household, and that I’d better shut my mouth and accept whatever changes she wants to make or find my ass out on the street.
I tried… and tried… and tried some more long after any ordinary person would have given up hope… to reason with her, but she, being the drama-monger that she is, was more content to stand there and scoff at everything I had to say without even listening to it before returning to a state of pointless, boisterous bitching. In her mind, she was Sarah and I was not, and therefore she was right and I was not, and that was as complicated as the equation got. In her mind, I never clean; in actuality I clean daily, but the only messes I have time to clean up when I get home are the ones her kitten makes when I’m at work. In her mind, she has to remind me to take out the garbage; in actuality, I am scheduled to take out the garbage once every Monday and Thursday, I follow by that schedule strictly, and it’s not my fault that she chooses to bitch at me every Monday and Thursday about why I haven’t touched the trash yet, when I’ve barely had a moment to breathe since getting home from work. We have similar issues with the dishes, feeding the cats, and other chores that I’m doing more than my fair share of to begin with. The parts of the argument that weren’t about me pulling my weight around the apartment consisted of her trying her hardest to use as many snappy one-liners as she could in an hour (whether they fit the situation or not), and me asking her if it was an issue with how much I pay (or can’t pay) for rent… whereupon she would immediately shout that it wasn’t about the money… and then, almost in the same sentence, she’d start complaining again about the money!
Now, take how confused you are now just from reading this, multiply it by at least ten, and you might be where I was yesterday afternoon.
So today I will be compacting my belongings and myself into half the space we once occupied, and trying to find a way to live that way comfortably for however long it takes me to find the first available exit. If I don’t do that, and anything she asks me to do from this point forward when she asks me to do it, she’ll call the cops sometime when she’s not home, taking advantage of the fact that my name isn’t on the lease to have me either arrested or thrown out on the street. If I comply with her wishes, the same thing might still happen. I am a prisoner in my own abode, and slave to an irrational, power-mad psycho, until such time as I either find an avenue of escape and run, or until she decides she’s pissed enough at me to ruin my life… if she hasn’t already.
And the worst part is, there’s nothing I can do about it.
I tried… and tried… and tried some more long after any ordinary person would have given up hope… to reason with her, but she, being the drama-monger that she is, was more content to stand there and scoff at everything I had to say without even listening to it before returning to a state of pointless, boisterous bitching. In her mind, she was Sarah and I was not, and therefore she was right and I was not, and that was as complicated as the equation got. In her mind, I never clean; in actuality I clean daily, but the only messes I have time to clean up when I get home are the ones her kitten makes when I’m at work. In her mind, she has to remind me to take out the garbage; in actuality, I am scheduled to take out the garbage once every Monday and Thursday, I follow by that schedule strictly, and it’s not my fault that she chooses to bitch at me every Monday and Thursday about why I haven’t touched the trash yet, when I’ve barely had a moment to breathe since getting home from work. We have similar issues with the dishes, feeding the cats, and other chores that I’m doing more than my fair share of to begin with. The parts of the argument that weren’t about me pulling my weight around the apartment consisted of her trying her hardest to use as many snappy one-liners as she could in an hour (whether they fit the situation or not), and me asking her if it was an issue with how much I pay (or can’t pay) for rent… whereupon she would immediately shout that it wasn’t about the money… and then, almost in the same sentence, she’d start complaining again about the money!
Now, take how confused you are now just from reading this, multiply it by at least ten, and you might be where I was yesterday afternoon.
So today I will be compacting my belongings and myself into half the space we once occupied, and trying to find a way to live that way comfortably for however long it takes me to find the first available exit. If I don’t do that, and anything she asks me to do from this point forward when she asks me to do it, she’ll call the cops sometime when she’s not home, taking advantage of the fact that my name isn’t on the lease to have me either arrested or thrown out on the street. If I comply with her wishes, the same thing might still happen. I am a prisoner in my own abode, and slave to an irrational, power-mad psycho, until such time as I either find an avenue of escape and run, or until she decides she’s pissed enough at me to ruin my life… if she hasn’t already.
And the worst part is, there’s nothing I can do about it.