Psycho Suzi, Part XVI: Reflection

This will be my final posting of Psycho Suzi, not counting future times that I may refer to her. For all of those who require a large bowl of popcorn to go with these posts, I apologize that it comes to an end. Many of you have said how much you've enjoyed reading my stories about (quite possibly) one of the dumbest people around. Also, among the bitchiest. I had no idea it would take 15 posts (or 16 including this one) to tell my story of living with that deranged woman for a year during college. Trust me when I say, it was never easy living with her. Not once. Not even for a millisecond. I saw the way she treated her "friends". I heard her stupid remarks. Her face is forever burned into memory, her voice like nails a chalk board.

Many of you have called me a saint or an angel for having put up with her. I agree that it was an act of God that I didn't kill her in her sleep. I know I could not have handled prison at all, and the thought of being someone's bitch gives me nightmares. Honestly, being a bitch doesn't bother me. Being someone's bitch is a whole different ball of wax.

It was a very long and hard year for me. My friends and family got me through it - letting me vent on a daily basis. I don't know how they withstood that for a whole academic year, but they did. They are the real heroes of the story. Without them I may have required thousands of dollars in therapy to make it out. Or the nice men in white coats may have been called. Or I would be writing this from prison.

I learned a lot by living with Suzi. It was definitely a "character building" year. I learned how to put up a front for when I deal with crazy people now. Like at work. I learned you can't win with crazy. You can't reason with them. You can't negotiate. Basically, just figure on losing and you're already ahead. But I also learned it can be fun to play with them and piss them off and watch them stew.

In my current job and in previous ones, I've had people ask me how I do it. How do I put up a "front" and appear civil to the crazy peoples' faces? How I do manage to look like they don't bother me? Unfortunately, it's not something I can easily explain or teach to someone. It seems like it's one of those things that comes to you after you've experienced something enough. Like living with it. Living with Suzi, many times I had to find a "happy place", a place where she couldn't get to me easily. I could appear happy to her yet be boiling under the surface. In addition, I didn't allow us to talk about a lot of anything. I really didn't ask for details about her and Joey. I didn't ask much at all, period. We barely talked about school, even though we were the same major.

Like I said earlier, my friends and family are the true heroes of it all. How my schoolmates and co-workers at Petco ever continued to study with me or invite to parties, I will never know. How my family didn't just disown me I'll never know. I know my parents felt guilty during that time, but financially it just wasn't feasible. And as much as I wanted out, I understood their dilemma. I never blamed them. In all honesty, how could I? I was the one who saw an opening at the time I needed one and I took it. I just didn't know how fucking crazy the bitch really was. The truth is, you really don't know someone until you've lived with them. You can only hide the flaws so long.

The next year, my last at college, I lived in a small studio apartment on the edge of town. I rarely saw Suzi, which was a relief to me. Sometimes she'd come into Petco. Most times I could see her through the store-front windows and I would mutter something about my psycho roomie and run to the back and hide in the bathroom. Or pretend I was doing stock. There were few times I couldn't get away. Once while I was working the register, and another time I was in the process of hiding and turned a corner and nearly ran her over. Once she even got on my case about not being on the e-mail list for the club she had been a part of - The Professional Animal Science Society. She had graduated, so I had taken her off the e-mailing list (my job as the secretary). However, she got all bent out of shape about it. I plainly told her that we still meet at the same week, same day, same time and if she was truly interested she knew where we hung the fliers in Plumas Hall. She never showed up. Shocker. By the way, she threw her "Nuh-uh!" argument in on that, and held up a line of customers to be all pissy with me. Classy gal.

Since I've moved to Sacramento, I've only heard stories from Betty every so often. Betty would still see her roaming around. Oddly enough, we found that Suzi holds grudges very well. She apparently started harassing Betty at her place of employment (a local sandwich shop) for a good month. Suzi had a new little friend, and every time they ordered, they filed a complaint about Betty - how she had horrible customer service, how she screwed up their orders, etc. It got to the point where Betty's boss finally had to take her aside and Betty had to rehash the roommate story to her boss. Luckily, nothing happened to Betty - Suzi lost that game, and eventually stopped showing her face at that particular sandwich shop.

It took a good couple years at least before these stories stopped making my blood boil and started becoming downright funny. These stories are ones where I typically like to tell them in person so I can see the reactions on people's faces. It's priceless.

I know there are so many others out there that had bad roommate experiences; each one is different. I know that mine was probably mild compared to some. At least she didn't try to suffocate me in my sleep or lace my cookies with arsenic or something. I tried to do everything to where she wouldn't have to come to me to have me "do it right". Like the time I apparently missed a teeny tiny spot of pasta sauce on a pot handle. It would have taken her 30 seconds to scrub it off. But instead, she came knocking on my door and hounded me for 10 minutes on how to properly wash dishes. Seriously, WTF? And I still had to clean it off so she'd shut her freaking trap.

So, while Suzi was a nightmare to live with, in the end, she gave me funny stories. She helped give me the ability to deal with stupid crazy assholes later in life. She helped to teach me how to grow a spine and stand up for myself. And that even though sticking her wet laundry on her pillow seems like an awesome idea, it's probably not. Because I'd have to deal with the aftermath that would have included the parental units from Hell. And that simply wasn't worth the hassle. Someone once mentioned they would have put a crayon in with her clothes . . . that might have worked - had I owned a crayon.

I hope you enjoyed my Psycho Suzi stories. For those that were always wondering what happened next . . . 

We survived.

And Karma is still a bitch.