Roommates!!

Today I feel like venting about roommates….but first; a brief rundown of my qualifications –

In less than 7 years I have lived with over 27 roommates. I have lived with almost every situation imaginable - I have lived alone, with one roommate, two, three, etc. until 5 rommates(That was/is my max). I have lived in the same room with a roommate, shared a bathroom, (i.e. basically lived on top of each other), but I have also have lived at times with my own room and completely different schedules so that we never see each other.

I have lived with all races/sexes including at one point (in paris), being the only person who spoke English and us all having to translate Russian/Japanese/French to have a conversation or to understand a phone message that was left (like in L'Auberge Espagnole)!

So – just to reiterate – I am great roommate, I have years of experience, and I think I have encountered almost every type of living style/personality quirk out there….which is why, one of my current roommates is mystifying me. He is. I am mystified!

My current situation lays out like this, I live with three actor/singer/dancers (I am not one), 2 are gay guys (who aren’t together) and one ia an awesome chica (straight as far as I know). So one of the guys – we’ll call him ‘Craig’ is moving out today. Our rent went up a couple of months ago and he has decided he would rather move to Astoria (where I used to live!) and pay less, than stay. Which is fine I get that, and actually we are all secretly happy because he is a bit difficult to live with. The weird thing is he can totally afford our apt. – he dances in a big Broadway show and is making a good chunk of change- but still he wants out.

What is mystifying me is that he acts all "green"/karmic and as if he has compassion/cares, and then when it comes down to something, he is always about the money. For example, the first day I moved in, Craig was shuffling some boxes into his new room and he asked me if I wanted his little 13" inch TV for my room since he had just gotten a flat-screen. I said “sure!”, I had just thrown my TV out because I too was going to upgrade, but I figured I should wait until I had my furniture placement set before I buy one. So I gladly took it off his hands and have been using it for about 5 months… because now I’m waiting for prices to come down/my paycheck to come up.

Anyways last week he came up and asked me how much I wanted to PAY him for the TV? I kind of stuttered and said that I didn’t need it since I was still going to upgrade soon, and that he could take it back, blah, blah, thanks for letting me use it, etc. - Still, it weighed on me that he expected me to pay for something he had practically thrown at me at one time. So, I very maturely just asked him what the deal was. I explained, I thought he was throwing it out and gave it to me, so that he wouldn’t have to deal with it. He said that no, in fact, he had always expected it back (lucky I didn’t upgrade during his vaycay!), but if I wanted it he was willing to cut a deal (like $20). I again, graciously thanked him but told him he could have it - $20 is way too much to pay for a fischer-price TV.

Meanwhile, yesterday he told Dave (our roommie) that if he wanted to keep the bathroom fixtures that he had installed, Dave would need to pay him (the full price!), before he moved out. Dave declined (because he could care less) and Craig completely stripped down their bathroom of the fixtures. All of this after a heated “pot” debate (the kitchen item not the drug) one night, in which Craig stated he would never buy something for the apartment and ask us all to chip in (rather, he would just pay outright for it). The fallout from the pots being that we ended up using Craig’s cheap Ikea pots (that we hated) over some really nice pots that Dave wanted us all to chip in for – that me and chica wanted. Ironically, Craig is neither taking the pots nor charging us for them – he left a message on the whiteboard last night that we can have them! Yay! Although I’ll probably make him throw them out – I hate when I roommate leaves his trash on move-out day!

Basically he cares until it costs him, and then he wants every red cent he can squeeze from you - and he's a liberal....

Also, while the roommies and I are all reasonably “green” – Craig takes things to a ridiculous level. Dave and I keep spotting the glade plug-in lying around various parts of the apt. (because we had been plugging it in whenever we found it out of the socket). Turns out Craig had been unplugging it to save energy!! -huh??

Too funny.