Introducing the (old) Pyscho Roommate . . .

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. In previous blogs, I've mentioned how bare my cupboards have gotten recently, and how tight of a budget I'm on. Again, I'm not destitute, I'm not in danger of living in my new car. My cat and I will not be homeless. My cat is not in any danger of not being well-fed. I just have to watch my money. And in an attempt at "watching" my money, I feel it best financially to move when my lease is up on my apartment. I will look for "room" basically to rent, maybe in a house. Who knows for sure, I have a few months to figure that part out. But the roommate deal is the reason I'll be moving. Roommates make things cheaper. I love my apartment, my mom helped me paint it. It's the first apartment I've ever made my own, so to speak. But I pay an arm and a leg for it, and with money being tight, it's simply not worth going broke over. I haven't had a roommate since college. And the last one was freakin' psycho. Stupid. Naive. I could keep going. So, in an effort to keep the "rose-colored glasses" off, I think that every so often I will share some Psycho-Suzi stories with you. And hopefully, these stories will help me spot another Suzi.

First off, the introduction to Suzi:

I first met this girl in a Soil Science class at Chico State. And yes, Soil Science is just as boring as it sounds. But I had no choice, it's part of the lower-division core classes for all Ag majors. Sucker, party of one. We had the same lab time. It took a few weeks before I really talked to her. I did notice that she was pretty much the only person to ever ask a single question in Soils. After about two weeks of class, I started doing my math homework during lecture so I didn't have to do it at home. His lecture "notes" were his lecture, word for word. There was no reason to pay serious attention. Plus it was boring. He was boring. It was freaking boring. I thought she was a bit weird, actually asking questions in class, because if I wasn't doing homework from another class, I was watching people fall asleep, watching their heads bob. I don't remember the reason why I joined her and her friend as lab partners, but I did. I just kept thinking she was an odd duck. Her cell phone always seemed to be attached to her. Not in class, obviously, but everywhere else. She always seemed to be on the phone. And she seemed to be interested (or intrigued) by stuff that was popular when we were kids. She said she was Pre-Vet, and she wanted to work with small animals and "pocket pets" (hamsters, rats, etc.).

For the next two years, I had at least one class a semester with her. If we sat close enough, sometimes she'd start passing me notes during lecture about random stuff. Depending on the class, sometimes we'd study or work on a project together. She had a "clapper" for light above her desk. Yeah. Guess what didn't work. The "clapper". She'd keep clapping her hands, even stand right next to the lamp and continue clapping . . . louder. And louder. And louder. There comes a point that, um, maybe you should uninstall the fucking "clapper" so your boyfriend, neighbors and guests don't have to hear you clapping all the damn time. It's just a thought.

Her bedroom was like a child's room. Posters of kittens and puppies. All sorts of stupid little collectible toys from Happy Meals. Tons of stuffed animals. Plus she was obsessed with UC Davis, as that's where she was determined to attend vet school. Her room was simply cluttered with shit. It overwhelmed me the first time I stepped foot in it. I thought, wait, she's how old again?? Her and her boyfriend lived in a three bedroom apartment. The third bedroom was simply storage. Mostly for her crap. Her couch was hard as a freaking rock. Literally. Very uncomfortable. There was a hairless rat in the living room. You read right. A hairless rat. It was the ugliest fucker I'd ever seen in my life. His name was Gus. Yes, like the adorable overweight mouse in Cinderella. Gus had cysts and lumps all over. And to make it better, he was blind. Yep. A blind, hairless, cyst-covered rat named Gus. In the living room.

Oh yes, I should have seen the signs then. The thing is, I never intended to live with her. Not until a couple months before I did. It was more about convenience that anything. Plus, while she was about as strange as a $3 bill, she seemed nice. Seemed. Please take note of that word. I would later find her to be a horrible, insensitive, conniving, petty, stupid, naive bitch. I found out the hard way that the old saying "You don't know someone until you live with them" is so very true.

So, that's the intro to Suzi. Every so often I shall share a Suzi-story with you. Trust me, they're worth it.