extra special roommates

So during my life I have had some pretty 'special' roommates. There have been plenty of normal, fun ones as well, but they aren't much fun to talk about, so for now they will be left out. Several of the fun former roommates read so HI! First extra special roommates were freshmen year. These were actually the least special of the special roommates. I felt a little left as both of my roommates had some pretty major health issues. During college, both ended up spending at least a month or two in the hospital. They were both great people and pretty decent roommates, but still a bit odd that both had so many health problems. And really I am very thankful that I didn't have any health problems. My next special roommate was a summer roommate who I had the summer after my sophomore year in college. We lived in a trailer on campus (they ran out of housing, so we got some trailers). I lived there because it was the only on campus housing at the time that had a kitchen. So in the trailer there were two bedrooms. I shared a room with a girl who I nicknamed Stinky. I don't even remember her real name. Clearly by her nickname you can tell that she was stinky most of the time, mostly smelling of really bad B.O. Now remember we shared a very tiny little room with bunk beds. That summer I spent a fortune on candles and air freshners. Sometimes I would even Febreeze her sheets when she was gone. I came very close to washing her sheets while she was out of town, but decided that might be a little bit rude. The reason I sprayed so much Febreeze and such on everything was mainly because I was afraid my clothing would smell like her and that just wouldn't do. We also had a joint closet thing with two doors, but no divider inside, so I constantly sprayed my own clothes. For a while I thought maybe it was my imagination or that I was exaggerating, but then I remember the first time one of my friends came over, he walked in and said "What the heck is that smell?" Clearly I don't think it was just me who minded. I never really understood why the other roommates didn't say anything to her, they were actually friends with her. But life goes on...luckily I haven't had a stinky roommate again. Then there were grad school roommates. My first year of grad school I moved into a house in a nice neighborhood. One of my roommates owned the house and she rented out three of the bedrooms to other people. I actually lived there for all of grad school, while the other roommates came and went. The first set of roommates were a girl and a guy. My other roommate (the owner) and I started to suspect something was up, so we started to investigate. Everyday if we saw anything strange happen we would immediately tell the other. The two roommates started "going to the grocery store" for house together and not coming home with any actual groceries. Hmm...It was like this for months and months. One of the bedroom doors was quite squeaky and so we would notice shortly after everyone went to bed, one door would open and close, and the other door would open and close. Definitely something up. This was exciting...we were total gossip queens and wondered why they continued to hide. It wasn't like we particularly cared if they were dating or not. My other roommate would occasionally ask them about it, but they denied it like crazy. Sometimes we would come home from work and they would both be on the couch with the sun in your eyes, but behind the wall. Eventually they both moved out to separate places and ended up getting married last summer. We found it really entertaining to watch them try to sneak around. The last special roommate might be the specialist of them all. Just to let you know, I had no input in picking this roommate. His name is D.C. He was in his late twenties and worked at the local t.v. station. He was actually from a small town about 40 minutes away and was tired of commuting everyday. He worked the 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. shift, so luckily my interactions with him were much less than they could have been. First big negative, he smoked. Ok not too big of a deal, he wasn't allowed to smoke in the house and although his clothes smelled like smoke I didn't so much care as long as he kept them in his room. He claimed he was trying to quit, but I never really saw any signs of that. Occasionally he would leave his door open and the smoke smell would just pour out. I told the owner about this and said that it seemed like he was smoking in the house. Sometimes we would go into his room to close the windows (if we were trying on the air or something) and notice an ashtray full of cigarette butts. The owner said something to him and his reason was he brought them in from outside because he didn't want to leave them outside. Ok, strange, but maybe believable. I am pretty sure neither of us believed, but we never caught him actually smoking so there wasn't a whole lot to do. One day I came home from being out of town for a week or so and opened my bedroom door, and my room smelled like smoke. Lovely. I immediately blew up at him. He still claimed he wasn't smoking in the house, but I didn't understand how my room could smell like smoke. After that night the house started smelling much better. For some reason he must have thought we were really stupid. His other favorite pastime was drinking. Since he would come home after everyone else was in bed he probably was a bit lonely. Some mornings I would wake up and go down to the kitchen and in the garbage can would be 6-12 beer cans covered by a paper towel. It seems to me he had a bit of a problem. Pretty much every day he would drink a bunch of beer and then go to bed. Once we were talking about alcohol (probably because he couldn't' understand why I wouldn't want to drink) and he flat out said he didn't have a problem....umm I think differently, but whatever. So at some point during the 9 months or so that he lived with us he got a piece of mail. I usually got the mail and glanced through it to see if anything was for me. Something caught my eye. It said something like Virginia Correctional Institute, #99999 (or whatever prisoner number it was. I was a bit concerned, but didn't let it bother me too much. The next morning I walked downstairs and sitting on the couches was a drawing of a naked woman, hmm strange? So I look at it, knowing that it was from the prisoner dude. I glanced at the letter and realized it was a friend of his from back home. So immediately I start investigating to see who this guy is and what he did. I never found out too much, but the one piece of information that made me freak out was the fact that the guy wasn't due to be released until 2049 and this was 2003. Um...what do you have to do that puts you in prison for 50 years? Not something I want any part of. I told as many people as I could so that if something happened to me they would know where to start looking. Paranoid, yes definitely. Reasonable, maybe. Shortly before he moved out we had another exciting adventure. The owner traveled frequently and usually for a week at a time, so it was usually me, D.C., and the other roommate (who was totally normal and not one bit scary). D.C. had somehow gotten back with some old girlfriend who lived in his hometown. Soon girlfriend and her three children (not D.C.'s kids) started hanging out at our house. Eventually they were spending the entire weekend there. These kids were that young, they were probably 7, 9, and 11 or something. They would all sleep in D.C.'s room. Let me first mention that D.C. ate fast food for pretty much every single meal. In the pantry he had some vienna sausages and maybe something else equally yucky. Back to the story. One Saturday morning I get up and go downstairs like normal, around maybe 9 or something. The kids are sitting downstairs and jump up when I come downstairs. They are hungry they claim and D.C. and girlfriend are still upstairs sleeping or something. I don't remember if I didn't have much food left (like no cereal or breakfast stuff) or if they didn't want what I offered, but they just kept hanging around the kitchen while I was in there. I probably left to go do errands or something shortly after that. Around noon or so, D.C. and girlfriend finally get up. I was just annoyed that he brought this whole family into our house without asking if we minded and then totally abandoning them while he slept, and the fact that he had no food in the house. I am sure there are plenty more D.C. stories, but I am tired of writing and really he is someone who I would like to forget. Oh...one more quick story. When I would get home from work, he would already be gone for the day/night. At some point I would have to use the bathroom that we shared and I would walk in and find his underwear sitting on the floor (and they weren't stylish boxers). Yuck. Now that I have left you with a lovely finally picture I am sure you will be back here for more lovely readings. Maybe I need to end with a picture of a flower or something.