Revisiting Roommates: Redneck Roommate Soap Opera- Episode 01: What's Cookin'?
My roommate Marie was short in stature-- about 12" shorter than myself. Besides her many complaints about being short, she also loved to cook. She had high aspirations of snaring a husband by entangling his stomach in a torrid love-affair with her cooking. (I'm not sure it's relevant to the story, but this is probably due to the Mormon religion's push for young adults-- especially women-- to get married.) Marie would often spend her days cooking... and I'm not sure exactly how good her food was-- I was never offered any of her cooking and I was too busy to care. Though, her "oil-free" brownies, cooked on broil, that she brought to a church activity were like bricks since she'd failed to add applesauce as a substitute.... so I can only assume she wasn't terribly skilled in the culinary arts.
Every payday, Marie would go grocery shopping. She'd come home with armloads of food to fill our shared fridge to capacity. Then, she'd spend all day Saturday slaving away in the kitchen cooking broccoli and cheddar, fish, pasta, and a whole litany of cuisines for work-lunches. Immediately after cooking her feast, she'd pop it in her food saver and throw it in the freezer. As you can tell, she's a few lumens shy of a candle...
Marie's cooking exploits always resulted in a fridge with no room for anyone else's food, a sink full of dishes, and a full trash can. The latter being the more noteworthy for this particular roommate story for Marie did not take the trash out when she finished cooking-- and she left eggshells and meat packages in the trash. Heather, our other roommate, was annoyed about the mess Marie had left in the sink and annoyed that Marie hadn't taken out the trash. She refused do do both the dishes and take out the trash. I would have done both, except I was barely home those days-- I was taking 20 credits, working 30 hours a week and only came home to sleep-- taking meals at work most of the time.
This particular evening, I was dropping my backpack off and grabbing my work shirt before heading back for my night shift at U-Mart, the on-campus mini-mart. When I walked in the door, I was hit by a powerful odor. Marie was lounging on the couch, watching television in the pervasive stench-- apparently she'd already gone nose-blind. The first thing she said to me was, "I think Heather's cat peed somewhere in the house." I agreed that could be a possibility, but quickly dropped off my backpack, grabbed my work shirt, and left.
When I came back home around 11pm, the kitchen light was on and Heather was in the kitchen with a bottle of bleach and a grim look on her face. She told me that she'd seen maggots in her cat's water dish, located by the trash. The rancid smell, sourced to the trash, was associated with the larvae.
Although Heather cleaned the mess and was able to get the smell out, she did not accomplish the task before the larvae were able to gestate into fully-fledged flies. The little duplex was inundated with the winged creatures buzzing around everywhere. I think this was Mid-October 2003, so at least we could open the door to shoo some of the flies outside. Though, Marie did come up with some rather unique ways of dealing with the problem on her own.
The first thing Marie did was pick up a spray bottle and some rubbing alcohol. She would spray the flies that flew near the stove while she was cooking. Now, Alcohol is not an insecticide and it is a flammable liquid, and once I explained to her that her plan was not going to have the desired results, she changed tactics. She completely used up the entire bottle of orange wood polish that I'd purchased to get dirty fish-water smell out of my coffee table/entertainment center (another Marie story). So I took and hid that. Then, she used up an entire can of my industrial strength Waxy-Bug-Off (I'd kept the bug spray after dealing with the termites eating my drafting board in the college dormitory my Soph year...) Lastly, we have the citronella candle.
This happened to be the week I'd been diagnosed mid-semester with Pneumonia. With my heavy work and class schedule, I wasn't getting much sleep... and when I'd been walking home from work on the sidewalk near U of A's old rock wall one rainy day, someone swerved their silver SUV into a puddle so they could splash me. Because of the wall, I couldn't dodge the massive wave that completely soaked my clothes. This happened to be the same week my grandmother had passed away after a vehicle crash (my cousin had gotten T-boned while he was driving grandma somewhere). I couldn't help it. With a mile left to walk home, I broke down in tears in the parking lot of the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering building, letting the rain coat me in the tears I couldn't hold inside anymore. I sat in the rain for about 10 minutes before finally squishing my way home. That's how I ultimately ended up with a temperature of 106°F, taking a nap in my room before class the day my roommate lit a 4-wick citronella candle inside the duplex to take care of those pesky flies.
She did not open any of the doors. Though, luckily, the duplex had an evaporative cooler (or swamp cooler), so my window was cracked for maximum air-flow. Had that not been the case, given my state of sheer exhaustion, I probably would have expired.
When Heather got home, she quickly extinguished the candle and opened the doors because "the air was wavy". My alarm went off, and I trudged to class...
That's the first installment of the Redneck Roommate Soap Opera. Would you believe me if I said it gets even more crazy from here?
Every payday, Marie would go grocery shopping. She'd come home with armloads of food to fill our shared fridge to capacity. Then, she'd spend all day Saturday slaving away in the kitchen cooking broccoli and cheddar, fish, pasta, and a whole litany of cuisines for work-lunches. Immediately after cooking her feast, she'd pop it in her food saver and throw it in the freezer. As you can tell, she's a few lumens shy of a candle...
Marie's cooking exploits always resulted in a fridge with no room for anyone else's food, a sink full of dishes, and a full trash can. The latter being the more noteworthy for this particular roommate story for Marie did not take the trash out when she finished cooking-- and she left eggshells and meat packages in the trash. Heather, our other roommate, was annoyed about the mess Marie had left in the sink and annoyed that Marie hadn't taken out the trash. She refused do do both the dishes and take out the trash. I would have done both, except I was barely home those days-- I was taking 20 credits, working 30 hours a week and only came home to sleep-- taking meals at work most of the time.
This particular evening, I was dropping my backpack off and grabbing my work shirt before heading back for my night shift at U-Mart, the on-campus mini-mart. When I walked in the door, I was hit by a powerful odor. Marie was lounging on the couch, watching television in the pervasive stench-- apparently she'd already gone nose-blind. The first thing she said to me was, "I think Heather's cat peed somewhere in the house." I agreed that could be a possibility, but quickly dropped off my backpack, grabbed my work shirt, and left.
When I came back home around 11pm, the kitchen light was on and Heather was in the kitchen with a bottle of bleach and a grim look on her face. She told me that she'd seen maggots in her cat's water dish, located by the trash. The rancid smell, sourced to the trash, was associated with the larvae.
Although Heather cleaned the mess and was able to get the smell out, she did not accomplish the task before the larvae were able to gestate into fully-fledged flies. The little duplex was inundated with the winged creatures buzzing around everywhere. I think this was Mid-October 2003, so at least we could open the door to shoo some of the flies outside. Though, Marie did come up with some rather unique ways of dealing with the problem on her own.
The first thing Marie did was pick up a spray bottle and some rubbing alcohol. She would spray the flies that flew near the stove while she was cooking. Now, Alcohol is not an insecticide and it is a flammable liquid, and once I explained to her that her plan was not going to have the desired results, she changed tactics. She completely used up the entire bottle of orange wood polish that I'd purchased to get dirty fish-water smell out of my coffee table/entertainment center (another Marie story). So I took and hid that. Then, she used up an entire can of my industrial strength Waxy-Bug-Off (I'd kept the bug spray after dealing with the termites eating my drafting board in the college dormitory my Soph year...) Lastly, we have the citronella candle.
This happened to be the week I'd been diagnosed mid-semester with Pneumonia. With my heavy work and class schedule, I wasn't getting much sleep... and when I'd been walking home from work on the sidewalk near U of A's old rock wall one rainy day, someone swerved their silver SUV into a puddle so they could splash me. Because of the wall, I couldn't dodge the massive wave that completely soaked my clothes. This happened to be the same week my grandmother had passed away after a vehicle crash (my cousin had gotten T-boned while he was driving grandma somewhere). I couldn't help it. With a mile left to walk home, I broke down in tears in the parking lot of the Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering building, letting the rain coat me in the tears I couldn't hold inside anymore. I sat in the rain for about 10 minutes before finally squishing my way home. That's how I ultimately ended up with a temperature of 106°F, taking a nap in my room before class the day my roommate lit a 4-wick citronella candle inside the duplex to take care of those pesky flies.
She did not open any of the doors. Though, luckily, the duplex had an evaporative cooler (or swamp cooler), so my window was cracked for maximum air-flow. Had that not been the case, given my state of sheer exhaustion, I probably would have expired.
When Heather got home, she quickly extinguished the candle and opened the doors because "the air was wavy". My alarm went off, and I trudged to class...
That's the first installment of the Redneck Roommate Soap Opera. Would you believe me if I said it gets even more crazy from here?