So... apparently I've started a new business. And apparently it's a not-for-profit! It's main role is to eliminate the ridiculous messes that our roommates create without any responsibility on their part. But, the best part is that they are so talented in their mess-making that they are able to undo our work within minutes of their return. When a confrontation is attempted we are usually told that they are 'too busy' or that our place 'doesn't need cleaning'. Which really only further attests to their ultimate piggy-ness.
And I'm not really worried about them reading this and whining and/or bitching - because as I mentioned before they are far too busy to clean up after themselves, and therefore far too busy to read my blog. The only person who really reads it is Troy, and strangely I am not upset at his piggy-ness this time (mostly because he is absent this weekend...and he's been cleaning up his act lately)
So, yesterday afternoon - just like every Saturday afternoon- I cleaned the communal areas of the apartment head to toe. Derek only vacuumed, but he had back problems that day, so he was excused of duties. But, after cleaning for about an hour and half, my roommates Paul and Andrew returned from studying at Caribou Coffee. Now, an hour and a half of cleaning is not so bad, but it's what I was cleaning up that angered me.
I cleaned up wax and burnt paper from Andrew and Paul screwing around with candles.
I cleaned up powdered cherry drink from Paul.
I cleaned up oodles of dust, but that's just because of the opened windows and lack of ventilation.
I cleaned up grease that was splattered all over my rice cooker, presumably from Andrew not noticing or caring where their grease from the Forman Grille splatters.
I cleaned up water all over the counters from careless dish washers.
I cleaned up dishes that were still dirty after they were washed due to poor quality of dish washing.
I didn't clean the microwave, because I rarely touch the effing microwave and it was disgusting.
I didn't clean the stove because I'm sick and fucking tired of constantly cleaning it because no one can clean up after themselves. I don't ever get anything all over the stove, so it's hard for me to imagine how much my roommates manage to dirty it so.
Last week I cleaned up dry eraser marker dust that was all over my nice coffee table... this took quite a while since it nearly stained the table. I was then given the response of 'aw... sorry' with a slight chuckle revealing the lack of remorse on the part of the dust maker.
I mean, really all people need to do is clean up after themselves, a task I have never found even slightly difficult in all my twenty years of living. Yes, it was a bit hard up until the age of six, but I managed this skill eventually.
And the excuse of not having enough time is incredibly insulting. If you don't have enough time to clean up your breakfast mess in the morning, wake up the extra two minutes it requires to clean said mess up. Also, I manage to clean up my own mess, and everyone else's while working, going to class, doing my homework, and tutoring - and I still have a little time for this blog, video games and pleasure reading.
I think it must really come down to selfishness.
So, back to my roommates' return yesterday. Derek and I told them how we cleaned and we were met with the response 'it didn't need to be cleaned' and an utter confusedness as to why we could possibly be angry with them. So, as usual I just bottled the anger and tried to distract myself with playing video games (I haven't really played any in three weeks).
But, that's not the point.
Derek and I wake up this morning (well... afternoon for me, I didn't quite feel like getting up due to a combination of pain and depression), and what are we greeted with this morning? Crumbs all over the table and cereal clogging the sink. How incredibly nice. There are already crumbs on every surface I cleaned. So, obviously Derek and I are fuming mad. It's difficult to imagine that these people we live with are supposed to be our friends, since they obviously care little about us and do not respect us. This has led Derek and I to want to find our own apartment - maybe with Adil if he wouldn't mind the commute.
So, that's all pretty stressful, right? Besides my work, school, tests, tutoring and Nihongo Club (that I really have little time for now, all of a sudden) I have yet another stressor. I have had an enlarged lymph node on the back of my upper, left neck for 8 weeks now. I have an appointment with a surgeon for a consultation tomorrow. It has shrunk a bit in the last two days, which worries me (because it shrunk before and then became huge). This worries me, because I am having horrible migraines on that side of my head, including the lymph node, accompanied with horrible nausea. I've grown accustomed slightly to the pain, but the pain killers available to me are ineffective, leaving me to just try and sleep it off.
I'm worried about being told tomorrow that it's not too enlarged. Last week it was huge, but the week before that it was about this size, and two weeks before that it was huge. It seems to change - maybe it's stress related. However, if that was the case it would be huge right now due to my highly stressful roommates.
Right now, as I type, Andrew is cooking on the Forman Grille. What are the chances he will notice grease splattering all over my rice cooker?
At this point I'm pretty sure it's Paul's cereal clogging the drain, since Andrew just looked at it and said 'sick'. Chances are we'll tell Paul about it and he'll never get around to cleaning it. Just like last week within hours of my cleaning the apartment he came back and asked to use my rice and rice cooker. I let him, but when I walked through the kitchen an hour later there was rice everywhere. Once confronted Paul said he would clean it up, which he never did, and I eventually just gave up.
That really has become my attitude lately with them. I just kind of say 'fuck it, I give up'. They are slobs and probably will always be slobs. I don't care if their feelings are hurt by this, because they obviously don't care about my feelings.
I'm just so incredibly pissed right now! It's hard to think of anything else... :\ I guess I'll just go do some homework and slowly explode in anger.
I secretly hope something is wrong with this whole lymph node thing because I could use the vacation.
I just noticed this whole post was a bit of a bitch-a-thon. I sort of feel bad, but not. I actually feel more bad for those of you reading this, because it's probably not as interesting as my usual post - I had a whole other post planned for this weekend but I am just so frustrated.
I need another walk on the beach with Adil :P
2 comments:
Don't worry about complaining. Isn't that the fun in blogging? And yes, we need another walk on the beach...so you can kill me!
But yeah, that's a real dilly of a pickle you're in. I really don't know how you'd go about resolving it, since you've already taken pretty much every logical step to rectify the situation. And I know the feeling--whenever it's just me and Tahir at home for whatever duration, it's the same exact thing.
I keep thinking of ways to solve this problem, but I really can't find a solution that doesn't end in a way where everyone is left angry.
Ultimately, there isn't much you can do. They need to realize on their own that their actions are extremely selfish and wholly irresponsible. And unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be an event that will occur in the near future.
Really, the only thing I can think of is to guilt them in a subtle way. Try a little pathos on them instead of sticking with logos.
And it's spelled "Foreman," just so you know.
Adil's right. Bitchin' is fun! Us gays have perfected it to the "t".
And that really sucks. It's always annoying to see that happen, but unfortunately I tend to do that. Of course, I do clean up, but it's not necessarily every day. It's mostly because of the house one grows up in. My house, I didn't have a mother who stayed at home. Both my parents were busy with their jobs, running us around, cooking dinner, and so on. So I became accustomed to not cleaning up after myself right away. Fortunately, I've grown past that a bit, and tend to get disturbed by messy rooms and give in to cleaning stuff up. And I'm getting to a point here...
Basically, this is what I say:
You have confronted them. That's good. But you need to confront them again. Talk to them about setting up either a cleaning schedule or time limit. Something like this:
-Andrew cleans mondays, Troy cleans tuesday, Lindsay cleans wednesdays, so on and so forth.
or this:
-Rooms must be cleaned up after two or three days, or something like that. Or even setting aside time each night to attend to cleaning.
Or you can just give up and let them be messy. Or, if you want to be super bitchy mean, take the dishes you use and put them all over their rooms!
Anyways... I think I'm rambling...
Anywho, when we all live together, I promise to help with cleaning. Heck, I need to practice for my future husband when I'm the stay at home artist. I can spend my days wearing my apron, making dinners, cleaning the house in thongs, and then making art. It'll be fun! Yay!
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