You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too, But Apparently You Can Have Mine

I’ve come to realize that a lot of things I do in my free time serves to maintain my sanity and to keep as far away as possible from the Sara(h)s–working part-time, holding leadership positions in three clubs, hiding out at cafes, and building my culinary skills in the kitchen. My apartment’s kitchen is pretty amazing (by college student standards), and I make good use of it by cooking and baking for my friends and roommates.

Sarah and I had been searching for a glass cake stand to adorn our kitchen counter, and after searching everywhere, we found a great one that doubles as a punch bowl if you flip it upside-down (again, perfect for a college student). We really wanted to bake something to put on it, so on Thursday while everyone was gone, I baked a thick chocolate cake. I carefully placed it on the cake stand to cool, and I contentedly did some work in my room where I could smell its rich aroma.

Then the front door snapped open. Hannah’s heavy footsteps traced the kitchen until she reached the cake stand, and I heard her exclaim excitedly about how good it looked.

“Hey, Roommate, is it okay if I have a piece of the cake?” she called from the kitchen.

“Yeah, go ahead! I was just waiting to ice it, but it should still be good without it,” I called back.

A little while later, I walked out to check on the cake and was shocked–a full 1/4 of the cake was gone! I don’t know who considers 1/4 of a cake to be “a piece”. I didn’t want to confront Hannah after living with her for less than a week, so I just brushed it off. 3/4 of a cake was more than enough for me.

When Sarah got home, she took a little sliver off the cake. “Whoa, this is really good!” she proclaimed happily. No way. Did she just give me a compliment?

After class, work, and back-to-back meetings all day yesterday, I came home to find the cake stand empty, save a bunch of crumbs.

“Hey, Sarah, did you have any more of the cake after last night?” I asked her.

“No, I only had that tiny corner,” she responded earnestly.

I turned to Sara, “Did you get to have any?”

“Nope, I didn’t even see it,” Sara replied.

Just then, Hannah waltzed (I use this term lightly) into the kitchen.

“Oh, Roommate, your cake was so good that I finished it off–hope you don’t mind!” Hannah announced breezily.

What. the. hell. Not only did Hannah eat an entire cake by herself, she didn’t even bother to think about saving me a slice. Maybe she thought she was doing me a favor by leaving the dirty cake stand there so that I could get at the crumbs or something. Bitch.

I’m thinking a potential alliance with Hannah is probably not going to work out. And now I’m fuming.

Update: Fortunately (or unfortunately), I’m not alone–reader Amanda also lives with a Hannah.

Japanese Sex Rope

Hannah finally moved in last Friday, 14 days after she demanded that I ready the apartment for her move-in. I figured that since she wanted to move in right away to get her money’s worth, the cheapo would have gotten her act together by now. Let’s hope this doesn’t set the precedence for how she’s going to do things in the future.

Either way, the Sara(h)s and I decided to be friendly and get to know our new housemate. We decided to skip the formalities and get down to girl business–by swapping guy stories over a Sex and the City board game. It doesn’t bode well that before the game even started, Hannah had already related the disturbing details of the time in high school when a much older guy drove her to a park and gave it to her through her back door. Now I’m not a prude by any means (actually, I have very little shame), but in my mind, you usually wait at least half an hour after meeting someone before you share such a story. We all tried to be polite and engaged in the grotesque imagery, but game abandoned, Hannah decided to really make herself at home.

“Wait, let me show you the penis lollipops!” she exclaimed, disappearing into her room. She returned with a mug full of small suckers shaped like phalli–in all different colors! We actually found this pretty amusing, until Hannah saw this as approval to continue with her graphic story time and pulled out the Japanese sex rope.

For some reason, I feel like the kinky Japanese probably never used neon pink ropes, but I’m not from Japan so what do I know.

Privacy: Reserved for the Elite

Living in an apartment, we share a backyard (of sorts, mostly gravel) with our neighbors. There is a unit across the “yard” from ours that has a tiny patio surrounded by a low fence.

Sarah likes to sit outside to talk on the phone, probably because she doesn’t want anyone to overhear her talk shit about people behind their backs.* She tends to open the gate to our neighbor’s patio and stretch out on one of the chairs while on the phone.

One day, our neighbor caught Sarah on her patio chair.

“The girl in the back is such a bitch!” Sarah complained to me later.

“Why, what happened?”

“She came home and saw me on the phone on her porch, and she told me to get off! She was like, ‘I am a really private person, and I don’t want you sitting on my patio anymore’ or something.”

“I’m sure she didn’t say it like that,” I said lightly. “The patio is so small that the chairs are right next to her front windows, so I could see why she doesn’t want strangers sitting there….”

“Whatever. I was on the phone with Sara, who heard the whole thing, and she thinks that girl is a total bitch too.”

“Okay.” Sometimes you just have to acknowledge Sarah’s ranting and let it go.

Later, Sara (who is in D.C. for the summer) and I were catching up on the phone when she told me that she heard what had happened with Sarah and the neighbor girl.

“Oh, I only heard Sarah’s side, so I don’t really know the details.”

“Well, Sarah shouldn’t have been opening the closed gate to sit on her patio anyway!” Sara scoffed.

Huh. I had no idea that Sara was such an expert on respecting others’ privacy/property.

* I’d give her the benefit of the doubt and suggest she likes to be outside, but she hates nature so it’s unlikely. Her second major is Conservation, and she’s in that awareness group for the environment, and yet Sarah refuses to do anything requiring extensive time outside.

"My Shit Smells Better Than Yours"

As a household, we all enjoy cuisine of many different cultures; our apartment often smells like food from home/ethnic restaurants around campus or dishes that we cook ourselves. While the Sara(h)s and I agree that Indian food and Thai food are amazing, they are obviously partial to their cultures’ cuisine and I am more partial to mine.

Usually, the smell of leftover chicken tikka masala or pad thai makes my mouth water, but occasionally, the Sara(h)s will have something from their parents’ country that makes me feel a little nauseous (especially the jars of pickled fuzzy goodness-knows-what). When that happens, I crack a kitchen window and go sit in my room with the door shut until the smell is gone.

Last night, I reheated some of the food that my mom made for me (I rarely go home, so when I do, my mom makes one of my three favorite dishes). I was having an incredible meal by myself until Sara got home from class.

“Oh my God, what is that smell?” she exclaimed, wrinkling her nose.

“I went home this weekend, and my mom made me my favorite dish!” I laughed it off.

“Um, can you get rid of it? It smells disgusting!” Sara began making a huge show of opening all the windows and doors.

“You know, I don’t ever tell you to dump your food when it smells bad, so could you not be so rude about it?” I responded.

“That’s because my country’s food never smells bad!” She retorted.

I picked up my bowl and went into my room without another word. For someone who claims to be so open-minded and cultured–clearly, her Poli-Sci major and living in Europe for three months entitles her to that self-proclamation–Sara really has her head up her ass when it comes to her own culture’s faults.

It’s the Thought That Counts… Right?

My roommates and I have been getting along lately (thus the lack of posts, sorry). We’ve been connecting over our similar struggles and the pressures/expectations that we face from our family.

I really felt like we were bonding and getting closer, especially when Sara and Sarah surprised me with presents on my birthday. I didn’t expect any show of kindness from them, so I was pretty stoked that they cared to do anything for me at all.

Sara presented me with a white cardigan, and Sarah gave me a pair of flip flops with strawberries on them. Since I was expecting something along the lines of a plastic spork or a paper clip, the fact that these were both items I had wanted made me rethink my opinion that the Sara(h)s were completely thoughtless jerks. Maybe they really had noticed that I didn’t have much warm clothing (all my clothes equal about 1/4 of each of their wardrobes) and that I like strawberries (baby steps!).

“I’m so glad you like the cardigan!” Sara exclaimed happily.

“Yeah, I do. Thank you so much! How did you know I needed one?” I meant it as a rhetorical question.

“Oh, it was easy. I just went through your computer and found your list of things you’re saving money for,” she responded nonchalantly.

She snooped through my computer?! So much for having any privacy. I didn’t know how to react, but (un)fortunately, I was saved from having to deal with Sara’s obvious intrusion by Sarah calling attention to her gift.

“Um, Roommate, can you wear these flip flops tomorrow? I need you to wear them first so I can borrow them afterward.”

Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for reminding me that you are, in fact, selfish and tactless.

Why We Should Keep Sarah from Getting a Degree in Medicine

All of my roommates (Sarah, Sara, and Victoria) and I were watching Grey’s Anatomy the other night, when the topic of surgeons leaving instruments in patients’ bodies came up. Sarah wants to become a surgeon, so we were all laughing about how she would be the type of doctor to forget a scalpel or scissors inside someone.

“You forget where you put the silverware after you use it, Sarah. What makes you think you won’t ever forget an instrument in a patient?” Sara pointed out, grinning.

“Haha, I guess that is totally something I’d do,” Sarah admitted. “But it’s not like I should have to worry about it anyway.”

“Hahaha, what do you mean you shouldn’t have to worry about a scalpel floating around in a patient’s body? Malpractice lawsuit, anyone?” I said.

“It, like, isn’t the doctor’s job to take care of that stuff. That’s why surgeons have nurses around,” Sarah said with a straight face.

The light-hearted mood of the conversation took a sudden dive.

“Wait, you think nurses are there to pick up after doctors who are too lazy to make sure to take out their surgical instruments?” I asked.

“Well, yeah. Surgeons have too many things to be worrying about than that. Nurses are supposed to do everything a doctor doesn’t have time for,” Sarah elaborated.

“I’m sorry, but nurses are not trained to be doctor’s maids. They are there to assist and help save a person’s life!” I exclaimed.

“Whatever, Roommate. You’re just getting defensive because your mom is a nurse,” Sarah turned away.

I was shocked. Yes, my mother is an RN (a registered nurse). And after hearing about her 25 years in OR, ICU, NICU, and Recovery, I know that being a nurse is not a piece of cake. My mother never complains in front of us kids because she wants to keep up a strong face, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized how taxing 16 hour day and night shifts were. My 5′3″, 130-pound mom has had to lift 400 pound patients onto gurneys. She has had to revive people who have flatlined. She has had to make sure premature babies don’t die over night. She has saved so many lives and witnessed so many deaths, and she never says anything about her life at the hospital until I asked one day several years ago. She watches CSI, House, and Grey’s Anatomy and just softly chuckles when my siblings and I ask her if what we see on TV is what it’s really like. My mother is a hero, every day, and I didn’t ever see it because she never said a word about it. So when this uppity bitch talks crap about nurses and how frivolous their purpose is, of course I’m going to be defensive.

I felt my eyes flashing, and I shot Sarah a disgusted glare and turned back to the TV. There were no more discussions about medical roles.