Two years of uncommitted commitment is a good thing,
right? It shows stability and
dedication, without compromising personal space and values. I mean, don’t get me wrong - Jake and I had a
good thing going. We loved each other and had been quite happy being thisclose
to living together. But I suppose we had reached that eventual point that all
couples reach, the do-it-or-move-on moment. Either that or it was too much tequila and those
damn oyster shooters. “They’re an aphrodisiac,” Jake had
whispered excitedly. Yeah, well, six months later, who got screwed?
Someone famous once said “ignorance is bliss.” Or
maybe it was just famously said by some random person. Anyway, it was something
that I obviously didn’t listen to - Jake and I decided to cut our rent by half
and he moved into my place (it being the bigger of the two). And the first week
was beautiful. We even made it past the you’re-not-bringing-that-into-the-house
stage. Oh, I realize everyone has their “white elephants.” Unfortunately,
Jake’s “white elephant” was a God-awful brass horse statuette. I pleaded with
him to not place it in the living room, reasoning that it didn’t match the
décor. Then I used that same excuse as
he made his way throughout the house, pausing hopefully in the kitchen, family
room and bathroom. But I recognized it
was important to him for some unknown reason and, being that I loved him, I
told him he could put it in our bedroom. At least there it was mostly out of sight.
Gradually, my place began feeling less like “my place”
and more like “our place.” We were a couple living together. Jake was
comfortable living in my home. And it was beginning to bug the shit out of me.
How can you know someone for two years and not realize
their idiosyncrasies? You think you know a person. But apparently now I was no
longer the girlfriend he had to impress. He was in, and I wasn’t going anywhere
– I had signed a twelve-month lease before he moved in. I was now his roommate.
And with that role comes the honor of knowing all - the good, the bad and the
disgusting - that the other person is about. Unfortunately, I didn’t do the
math before he moved in.
The problem is, Jake thought the equation was two good
things made up for one disgusting thing.
It doesn’t work that way. Which
is a girl most likely to fixate on? That
he occasionally bought her flowers and vacuumed the living room without being
asked, or that he had a habit of sitting on the couch and eating food straight
out of tin cans, incessantly scraping the sides of the can with his fork until
you're about ready to crawl out of your skin?
I’ve told him it was the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. He’d say it was one less dirty plate. He just didn’t get it. Just like he didn’t get that it’s not okay to
let your cat help clean off your plate when you do use them - before you’re
done eating. Reasoning that the cat was
only eating off one side of the plate makes for a poor argument.
So it was little things like that. *sighs* So many roadblocks.
Eventually we had reached a point where every little
thing the other person did was starting to become annoying. Well, everything he did. Seriously, it was
everything now. And each new annoyance
made me think of the same Emily Dickinson quote: Whenever
a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon.” And those little fuckers were everywhere. Little demon annoyances were going to swallow
us up. To be fair, I’m sure my constant
harping and eye-rolling wasn’t helping the situation. I knew we needed something new and different
to shake things up a bit. So one
afternoon we set out for the home restoration store on an unspoken
mission: Find something to either keep
us together, or suitably distracting enough to the other person to effectuate a
truce. Browsing through the store, I
found myself leaning toward the aromatherapy home spa. Jake zeroed in on the Weber Summit D4
Gas Grill. I could tell by the slightly
glazed look in his eyes that I lost that battle.
However, if it was a battle that I lost, at least I
was eating well. We hardly ate anything
anymore that wasn’t grilled and, I have to admit, corn-on-the-cob never tasted
better. At least until that night when
Jake forever ruined it for me.
Still enthusiastic a month later over the new grill,
Jake invited a couple we had recently met over for dinner. It went amazingly well. A few hours later we had all migrated into the
kitchen to clean up and finish off the bottle of wine. I noticed that Jake had corn in his teeth so
I discreetly brought it to his attention. He seemed in no hurry to get it out, and
continued to clean off the counter. Annoyed at his lack of concern, I watched
him pick up random objects and place them in the catch-all basket: some loose
change, the phone bill, a pair of shoelaces that I never got around to putting
in my shoes. As we talked with our guests I watched him absently toying with
the shoelace. I swear I almost saw a
light bulb go off above his head.
Completely mortified, I watched as he brought the plastic tip to his teeth
and start picking away at the corn. No
amount of wine could have made that scene any less awkward. Completely unfazed, Jake looked over at
me. “What?” he asked.
Coincidentally, our new friends suddenly became aware
of the time and ‘how late it was getting.’
They quickly left, leaving me standing alone in the kitchen with
Shoelace Man. I glanced over at
him. He was intently working the tip of
the shoelace between his teeth, oblivious to anything else. I just grabbed another bottle of wine and locked
myself in our room.
Several days later, just when I thought Jake had
reached his full gross-out potential, I came home to find he had at least one
more trick up his sleeve. Or rather, a
disgusting interest in the contents of his belly button. I stood in the doorway for a few minutes until
I just couldn’t bear to watch any longer.
“Lose something?” I asked sarcastically.
Startled, Jake looked up. His sheepish grin turned to what he obviously
felt was a seductive smile as he reached his arm out to me.
“Hey baby,” he purred.
Disgusted, I glanced about the room, looking at
anything but him. My eyes fell on that
stupid brass horse, and the white object lying across it’s back.
"Jake, your dirty underwear is not a
saddle." Like a nine-year-old boy
failing to see how I failed to see
the humor in his behavior, he just looked at me and pouted. "It’s funny.
You just don’t get it."
“Yeah, well, if the brass starts to tarnish you’ll
know why,” I threw over my shoulder as I stormed out of the room.
Well, the brass didn’t tarnish, but our relationship
did. One lease buy-out later, I’m poorer
but wiser. I wonder if it would be
socially acceptable to have my next boyfriend fill out a questionnaire prior to
moving in? I could pose questions such
as “what is your definition of personal hygiene?” Or “the purpose of a shoe
lace is (a) dental floss in a pinch (b) to hold a shoe in place or (c)
strangulation.”
I think I’m going to need a lot of paper .....
© Dahlia Ramone: May 28, 2017
This was first written in November, 2006, as my audition
piece for Loaded for Blog. The topic was
a story: You and your boyfriend/girlfriend decide to move in together and
you discover that they have all kinds of disgusting habits. Include mention of
a shoelace and a brass horse statuette.
Topic: “So Many
Road Blocks”
Bonus Prompts:
Hard (2 pts):
Quote Emily Dickinson * (seventh paragraph)Easy (1 pt): Mention a “tin can” (fifth paragraph)
Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon *
