Barron

So, I generally try not to write negatively about other people, it generally ends badly. I learned this early on with the bitch fight Shawn and I had back in February 2003. (We’ve since made up and are reasonably active chatting partners.)

I’ve had a few other forays into the genre a biting open letter to Lambda Union which garnered me heaps of distain, and a open poetic rant which was flattering to its subject.

So, I’m going to engage in yet another foray into the genre although I doubt this jaunt will have an effect like the other two times.

I’ll call this person Barron, for it accurately represents her “management” style and it rhymes with her actual name.

She’s been my roommate for the past five and a half months. I think we got along for the first three weeks.

I was greeted with a tour of the place, and informed that my chore in the house would be cleaning the floors (not my favorite, but honestly not horrible.) She would be responsible for getting the dishes clean. I was simply to rinse them, leave the dishes/bowls in the sink, and leave the cups on the counter because she had problems with “breaking them”. Simple enough. Besides I’ve had some problems with the dishes in the past, so I figured it was good that someone else would have the responsibility for them. But more about that later.

Barron very nicely gave me a driving tour of Seattle, then promptly asked for gas money. I countered with a Chinese dinner.

Barron also goes shopping, buys shitty dollar store dish soap (waay more water in the stuff than the major brands in the mainstream stores, so there is less cleaning power) then bills me and the other roommate for the stuff, although neither of us do the same when we buy other household chemicals.

Barron and I share a refrigerator and freezer. Which shouldn’t be much of a problem. Every other time I’ve shared the fridge, everyone either gets a section of it, or we’re in a situation (e.g. a dorm room) where there isn’t really a problem with space. Call me strange, but I like to have a section of the fridge to myself so I know how much space I have to play with when I’m shopping for stuff. Barron wasn’t explicit about dividing the fridge so I cleaned a small section (less than half) out for my use. Unfortunately Barron didn’t get the concept (although I also didn’t explicitly tell her, I sort of figured she’d figure it out) and I’d come home and there’d be something of hers in my section. Why would this be? Because she’d simply see the nearest open spot and plop her stuff right there. So I took to making sure my space of the fridge always looked full (or at least had stuff right up front), and that solved that problem. The other fun thing about the fridge was she has some celery in there when I moved in in August. The same bunch of celery was still sitting there when I finally decided to throw it out in November. (It held up amazingly well given the circumstances, the middle section of it was a bit mushy, but overall it was still identifiable as celery.) At the same time in November I also took a peek at her carrots, which were happily growing roots! Given that they weren’t molding or food safety hazard I left them there, where they sit to this day, still uneaten.

This is a nice spot to segue into the general fact that she has issues disposing of items. (Note: In Seattle-speak “disposing of” includes trash, recycling and composting.) If I don’t put her mail in her mailbox, it’ll clutter the house for quite some time. She’s got a desk that’s got a good foot of stuff piled up on it. In the laundry room there is an empty club pack Tide bottle, which is only an issue because it got shoved right in front of my cleaning supplies. We’ll also have random items from food packaging that gets left on the counter now and then, and generally if someone makes a mess on the counter, it is a mess on the counter for someone else. The sponge isn’t a tool that seems to be used in the house.

Speaking of cleaning, I’ve been damaged for life by McDonald’s and I’m a firm believer in “Clean as you go”, or even better yet, don’t make a “fricking mess in the first place”. Translating this to a specific appliance, when you use a microwave the general concept is to cover things that will spatter so they don’t make a mess of the inside of the microwave. If by chance something does make a mess in the microwave it is best to clean it up immediately before it cakes on with the repeated exposure to microwaves. Yeah, tell Barron that. I’ve used a microwave for quite some time for myself, and I can keep it reasonably clean with spot cleanings and a good scrubbing every three or four months. I’ve had to start cleaning the thing monthly because well there is all sorts of foodcrap caked on the insides (I think is chicken soup by the smell of it, but I really don’t feel like tasting it after I’ve had to scrub it off with a sponge.) Yeah, so thats another thing that really annoys me.

Okay, two more then I’ll be done.

So, I mentioned the dishwasher earlier. Barron is supposed to do the dishes. However often things get to the point that we run out of utensils or cups, and there are dishes flowing out of the sink and taking up a good quarter of the counter space. I’ve actually had one of my metal coffee mugs that had a little liquid in it that sat long enough waiting to be put into the dishwasher that it managed a little bit of rust. Its honestly one of those things that really annoys me because I’ve offered to trade chores with her (I didn’t do the dishes to her “standards”) and if you attempt to help her she gets territorial about it. I’ll admit up front in our recent arguments I’ve been an unfair with my arguments, but that really doesn’t matter because usually they’re ended by her screaming ad nauseam.

Barron is the one who pays the rent and the utilities (except the DSL, which I pay) We all have to give her a check/cash and she writes one check for everything. This shouldn’t be a big issue. But on Tuesday she left a note that she needed the rent check a bit earlier than usual by Thursday evening. Now I was off on Thursday, and I figured since evening generally starts at 5 PM for most people I’d be fine writing the check sometime around 1 or 2 PM. So that Thursday I woke up, and started my day off by watching some television on DVD in bed. Basically a lazy morning. Barron knocks on my door and lets me know that she needs the rent check by 11 because she is leaving for the weekend. Now 11 AM isn’t evening in my book, but this wasn’t anything to make a huge fuss over. So I tell her I’ll get it for her. Now mind you I slept in my underwear only and I simply woke up and didn’t even get out of bed to start watching the DVD. Given that I didn’t plan on getting out of my room for a while I didn’t want to get dressed yet. So I wrote the check, and laid it on the floor in front of my room, and attempted to get her attention, but she was busy. So I figured she’d ask/go looking for it, and she’d find it. So 11 rolls around and she gets in a tizzy about the check. I tell her its on the floor in front of my room. Okay so maybe that wasn’t the most completely polite thing to do, but given that I was flexible in the first place about writing the check then and there instead of at the previous time I figure it wasn’t a big deal. Wrong. Barron launches into a tirade about how rude and inconsiderate I am, I attempt to refocus the issue by telling her she’s making a mountain out of a molehill, and she continues on. I realize this is one of those arguments that really isn’t worth the oxygen and nitrogen it travels through, and be
sides its interrupting me from my Star Trek. So I loudly close my door.. Yes. So that huge paragraph is because Barron can’t communicate clearly and accurately (e.g. the time she wants the check) and really sweats the small inconsequential stuff.

Oh, one more thing. By her college training she’s a stage manager. Stage managers are supposed to be organized, neat, good communicators, patient, and polite. Being a former stage management major, and having spent enough time around the theater I’m left with the question “How the fuck she made it through her freshman year, let alone graduate?”

One of these problems would be forgivable, but the whole package is more or less unbearable. So now you know why I’m looking for somewhere to move.