Either He Really Doubled Down, Or…

Content Warning: Cancer, Death

Back in the mid-2000s, I let an eighteen-year-old move in with me to ease up on my renting expenses. He was tolerable for the most part, but one day, I overheard this conversation he was having on his cell phone.

Roommate: “Hi. I was calling to dispute these charges I found on my debit card: $85 for [Local Expensive Italian Restaurant] and $450 for [Expensive Hotel Plaza].” *Pauses* “Yeah, I have no clue who did that! Can you cancel the charges?” *Pauses* “Investigation?”

He paused again, his voice getting increasingly nervous.

Roommate: “Okay.” *Pauses* “What all does it involve?” *Pauses* “Okay.” *Pauses* “All right, thanks.” *Hangs up*

I paused my video game and tossed my controller.

Me: “Bro! Check this out. I tried the exact same BS when I was eighteen and the Playstation 2 came out. And you know what happened? The bank notified the merchant that I was disputing the charge… and the merchant sent the bank surveillance footage of me at the register with this big s***-eating grin on my face. And it ain’t gonna be any different when your bank sends those businesses a notice that you are disputing the charges. They will pull up everything they need to prove it was you and protect their profits. And my guess is that those charges are from when you went to go frolic with that girl you were messing with on Myspace, right… Right?”

[Roommate]’s face turned red as he turned away to hide his embarrassed laughter.

Me: “Yeah, it’s called being an adult. And part of being an adult is being responsible with money. You probably were thinking that it was just the bank that was gonna eat the loss, too, and they’d forget about it, didn’t you?”

[Roommate] kept turning redder and laughing harder.

Me: “Yup. I used to be eighteen, too!”

A few months later, I noticed that [Roommate] had whited out his name on the mailbox and that he would come and go on foot… but I would spot him around town driving his car. I told him with a smirk:

Me: “You know, if you are behind on your car payments, keeping your car parked at a buddy’s house or at some rental garage is only buying you time. Banks will hire people to secretly follow you, and it’s just a matter of time before you come out of a grocery store to find your car gone.”

Roommate: *With a horrified look* “Are you serious?”

Me: “Yep!”

He moved out the following week without any notice.

About a month later, someone rang my doorbell. He introduced himself as the representative of a bank.

Man: “Are you aware of anything having happened to [Roommate]?”

Me: “Uh… no? He moved out last month, but last I heard, he’s alive and well.”

Man: “Right, because while we’ve been doing some skip tracing to find him over a loan he’s defaulted on, we came across this—” *hands me a sheet of paper* “—and we’re trying to confirm if he’s actually deceased.”

The paper was a printed-out website for online obituaries, typically used by people who couldn’t afford to print them in the local newspaper. And it was an obituary of [Roommate] — complete with a photo — announcing that he had died of brain cancer.

The brain cancer part, I do believe, since his brain clearly wasn’t operating right.