Psycho Roomie, Part XII: Suzi and Boyfriend

I'm not kidding. This chick somehow managed to somehow get a boyfriend. Still can't figure out how. I'm pretty sure Witchcraft may have been involved. Possibly blackmail. Maybe some (a lot) of liquor. Perhaps a severe head injury.

When I first met her, she had a boyfriend. She then got herself summarily dumped because she gave him an ultimatum - she wanted to be engaged by Christmas or she wanted him gone. He left. Sort of. He was still on lease for their apartment, so she was forced to live with her ex-boyfriend for an additional six months. Serves her right, in my humble opinion.

At some point during the fall semester (our first semester of living together), she mentioned that an old friend was coming to visit. She somehow knew him from when he used to live in San Jose or something. At the time this took place, he was a firefighter in Colorado. So, really, this boy should have seen the signs and known to stay as far away as possible. Staying Colorado would have been a good start. However, Joey was being forced to use vacation time, and so he thought it would be awesome to come visit an old friend. She kept touting how hot he was, and of course the fact that he was a fireman made him that much hotter. She finally showed me a current picture of him, and I wasn't overly impressed. He wasn't unfortunate looking, but I've seen many firemen that were way hotter than he was. Her standards of "hot" were obviously different than mine.

I believe his first visit came sometime in November. Possibly early December. He stayed at our place for a week. For some reason, Joey seemed smitten with Suzi. I never once had a problem with him - he was a nice guy and we got along. The biggest flaw I could find was that he was smitten with Suzi.

Within a few days of him being in town, they decided to become an "official" couple. One evening, hours after Joey left from his first visit, she came to my doorway. I remember sitting on the floor of my room, working on classwork for my Reproductive Physiology class, when I felt her evil presence and turned my head to look at her. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Did Joey leave already?
Suzi: Yeah . . . I miss him so much already.
Me: I get that. Long distance relationships are really hard. (FYI, I did that. For a long time.)
Suzi: Yeah. I wish his visit had been longer.
Me: Are those pj's new? (I had noticed her firemen pj's)
Suzi: Oh yeah . . . we got matching pajamas the other day.
Me: (Alrighty then. Freak.) Oh that's nice.
Suzi: And we each got a plush dog (Dalmation). Mine's name is Dal, his is named Mation, and when we get married, we're going to get a Dalmatian and name it "Dalmatian."
Me: (blank stare) Awww. That's cute. (OMFG, gag me - somebody . . . anybody . . .)

When she left me alone, I nearly beat myself to death with my Repro-Phys book. I mean . . . REALLY?! It's like naming a Dalmatian "Spot", or a Chihuahua "Spike" or "Butch", or a Bull Mastiff "Tinkerbell".

Come January, she went off to Colorado for a week to visit him just before school started. It was a blissful week. It was so freakin' awesome to come home, just knowing she wouldn't be there. Such freedom! Too bad it didn't last longer.

Spring semester was dotted by several visits from Joey. Spring semester started at the end of January, and Suzi had gone only the week prior, and was back the day or two before school started up again. Joey, visited a week in February for Valentine's Day. A week in March for our Spring Break. A week in April for Easter. And the entire month of May so he could support Suzi for her college graduation. (I'm so not kidding on that last one) The only thing that really miffed me about him visiting so often was that, as far as I'm aware, he never once offered to help pay for anything whilst visiting. Especially during his long visit in May. I have no idea if he offered anything to Suzi and she refused, but he never said anything to me. He could have pitched in a bit for rent, cable, and PG&E, considering he was "living" there for a month.

Unfortunately, Joey visits also meant Suzi's parents would be visiting. Oddly enough it wasn't to ensure their daughter's virginity. Joey always flew into the San Jose airport, where Suzi's parents would pick him up. They would drive him up to Chico (which is about a 3-ish hour drive each way). They would drive back to Chico to pick him up, and drive him to San Jose airport where he flew out. Like Joey couldn't rent a car and save everyone the trouble? Like Suzi couldn't do some of the driving herself?

During one of his visits, Joey had an interview with a local fire chief. Luckily I was home to save him from utter failure and embarrassment. He came out of Suzi's room in wrinkled slacks and white button down shirt. I told him he could not go to a job interview like that, traveling be damned. No one would even think twice about him looking like had just rolled out of a suitcase. I said something like maybe his girlfriend (who was standing right there) could iron his clothes for him. I found out that day, that Suzi had no idea how to iron anything. I told him to change and I would iron his clothes for him, considering he, of course, didn't know either. I attempted to iron the clothes, with no luck. Suzi started mocking me, that I couldn't get the wrinkles out. Bitch, at least I tried. Of course, I still had one trick up my sleeve: The infamous Fluff Cycle. I stuck the clothes in the dryer for 15 minutes of "fluff" and - Wha-la! not a wrinkle left! This is how Suzi found out about the fluff cycle. But she never used it, even after I explained what it was. And how it saved money. (In the end, Joey did not get offered a job with the Chico Fire Department).

Over time, the long distance seemed to wear on the relationship. Apartment walls are fairly thin. And doors are excellent listening tools. Also, it helps when your psychotic roommate is rather loud. I heard several phone conversations in the last couple months I lived with her late at night. I could only hear snippets, which bugged me, as I wanted so badly to have super-hearing to hear both sides of the conversation. Many late night phone calls were late night phone fights. I could hear things like, "Why are you jealous? You have nothing to be jealous of!", "No, I don't regret giving myself to you!", "I'm not going to let anyone treat me like this!". And so on.

Now, Suzi is the type of girl who, in my mind, would try to make her boyfriend jealous. I wasn't really around her a lot while she was with the first guy, so I didn't really get to witness to much there. At the beginning of the fall semester, she befriended this guy in one of her classes. We will call him "Bob" simply because I can't remember his name. Nice enough guy, though definitely not my type. She lead him on. They studied together, a lot. I saw her lead him on - the things she said, did, etc. He finally brought her some flowers, and suddenly she called him a stalker, and told me that if showed his face at our door to call the police. Prior to Bob, there was another guy-friend of hers that she hounded until he practically had to get a restraining order on her. She would call him, text him, and email him so much that she pushed the guy away. And she the balls to complain to me (this was just before I moved in with her . . . should have been my first clue, huh?) about his behavior. How he'd shown all sorts of interest in her and the second she showed interest he ran away. Um. Honey, you weren't showing interest. You were a relentless, stalking, jealous bitch.

By the time the end of May rolled around, and I was preparing to run off to Florida for 9 weeks, Suzi and Joey were engaged. I thought it was rather quick, but I wouldn't be surprised if Suzi laid on the pressure. The kind of pressure that she had laid on her ex that she wanted to be married before going off to vet school.

When I came back from my internship, and cleaned the apartment with her, I did not see the engagement ring that had been on her finger when I had left. During the next year, when she would sporadically grace me with her evil presence at Petco, I never paid attention. However, I'm pretty sure that Joey finally saw the light, and dumped her sorry ass. Or possibly, she dumped him and he probably went out to celebrate the fact that he longer dated a psychotic bitch.

And as far as I know (though no one has really seen her much recently), I really don't think she's married yet.