People have commented that all the archive pieces so far have been from the past 30 years, which does nothing to back up of our claim of being founded in 1899. Well how about a piece from the 30’s? Good, because that’s next week. This week, Fall 1998.
Dear Roomie,
Hi! It looks like we’ll be living together, so I thought I’d be the first to say hello. Since I was the first, I’m going to use this as justification to behave like a total schmuck for the entire year. See, while you were raised by your parents to be a considerate human being, I was raised by Alaskan timber wolves, so I have absolutely no sense of how to behave around other people. Let’s not kid ourselves. No matter how badly I treat you, daddy’s still going to get me a job sharpening pencils at Merrill-Lynch for $120 grand a year. So, here are the rules:
► No studying. I’m sorry, but while I’m in the room I just can’t allow it. Oh, you can tell me to keep the music down, but that’s only going to make me more inventive. I’ll shout into the phone for an hour, I’ll have really loud, inane conversations through the window with people I don’t even know, I’ll start practicing primal scream therapy, pyromania, and self-mutilation until you leave. Then I’ll push all of my dirty laundry onto your side of the room until you can’t open your closet without the aid of a forklift.
►There is no such thing as “your” property. Now before you get angry, I’d just like to say that I will share everything I own with you too. Of course, I’m a cheap, inconsiderate little shit, so I don’t own anything you would expect a human being to need to survive. I don’t have shampoo, toothpaste, a shaver, shoelaces, pens, a computer, or a working kidney, so I will expect full usage of yours. But don’t worry, you’re more than entitled to use any one of my noxious overpriced colognes. Of course, they all smell like embalming fluids, but they DO have Abercrombie and Finch printed on the bottle. Wait, is that “Finch? Oh for fuck’s sake…
►My music must be played at a certain volume. And when I say “certain”, I mean “brain-shattering”. I suppose it IS odd that, while I can’t buy my own soap, I have a stereo system that can melt the fillings in your teeth. Oh, and don’t count on hearing any GOOD music. I mostly listen to modern top-40 stuff, which is whatever the radio stations say is popular. If the #3 song in the country was a recording of an elderly man passing a kidney stone in a whorehouse restroom, I would listen to it at mind-bending volume every day until it got bumped off the charts by, say, a recording of institutionalized mescaline addicts playing “Surfin’ USA” on their bedpans.
Well, that’s about it, really. I don’t think I need to waste time explaining to you why I never clean up after myself, even if I were to defecate all over your carpet, because you should expect that sort of thing. Oh, and I should also point out that if you decide you can’t live with me, guess who has to move out. Yeah, the best thing about college life is that I get rewarded with a single for behaving like an inconsiderate little troglodyte. If you’re upset that you have to live with someone like me, well, hey, you should have gone to a better school.
Yours,
X