I live with two other housemates in a pretty rural, swampy part of the country. I’m in my room, getting ready to sleep, when I overhear:

Housemate #1: “Help! There’s an intruder downstairs!”

I jump out of bed at the shocking news. I overhear [Housemate #2] scramble out of his room. By the time I’m in the hallway, [Housemate #2] is already downstairs, wielding a baseball bat. Since he’s over six feet tall and probably the buffest guy I know, I leave him to it while I try to calm down [Housemate #1].

Me: “What did you see?”

Housemate #1: “I didn’t see anyone, I just heard them.”

Me: “You heard people? Entering the house?”

Housemate #1: “They were already in the house! I heard them coming from the garage!”

Me: *Shouting down the stairs.* “[Housemate #2], check the garage!”

Housemate #2: *Shouting up the stairs.* “On it!”

Me: “Did you hear them talking?”

Housemate #1: “Yeah, but it was a weird language.”

Me: “Language? Do you know what one?”

Housemate #1: “I don’t know. If I had to guess, I’d say… German?”

Me: “German?”

Housemate #2: *Walking back up the stairs.* “Go back to sleep, everyone. Just a false alarm.”

Me: “So… no Germans trying to break into the house?”

Housemate #2: “Just two giant toads trying to escape from the garage.”

Me: “[Housemate #1], two toads sound… German to you?”

Housemate #1: “Kinda! They didn’t sound English!”

Housemate #2: “[Housemate #1], you’ve never lived outside of Manhattan until now, have you?”

Housemate #1: “No, I haven’t. Why?”

My roommate is making pasta.

Roommate: “Why does this always happen? My pasta is mush!”

Me: “Wait, you’re still boiling it?! Didn’t you start cooking it over an hour ago?”

Roommate: “Yeah, but the water kept boiling!”

Me: “You didn’t… turn off the stove?”

Roommate: “I thought it turned itself off when the pasta was ready.”

Me: “…you’re gonna have to explain that one to me.”

Roommate: “The pasta is ready when the water stops boiling.”

Me: “No, [Roommate], you decide when the pasta is ready, and you’re the one who stops the water boiling… by turning off the stove. You have to be the one who decides.”

Roommate: “Ugh! Cooking is so hard! They should invent something that cooks all the food for you.”

Me: “They did, they’re called restaurants.”

I later heard my roommate on the phone with his mom, asking her to come over and cook pasta for him.

This story reminded me of something that happened during my college career.

The state of Michigan has two parts: a lower peninsula that gets pretty chilly north-Midwest weather, and the upper peninsula that gets freezing wind whipping down from Canada and massive amounts of snow. I grew up in the upper part, but was going to school in the lower part.

Freshman year, moving into the dorms, I met my roommate, who was really excited to be experiencing an American winter. He was already feeling kind of chilly. It was late August and over 80 °F (27 °C), so I asked where he was from and if he had a winter coat. Turned out he was from Jamaica, and he proudly showed off a light windbreaker.

Me: “Okay… First thing tomorrow, we’re heading down to the Army Surplus store and getting you a real coat, a hat, some gloves, and some boots.”

Sophomore year, new dorm, new roommate! And a similar story, except this time they were from Guatemala and didn’t even think to bring a windbreaker.

Army Surplus store trip for coat, hat, gloves, and boots. 

Junior year! I’m out of the dorms and into half of a duplex apartment with a shared living room and kitchen. I lived there for two years and had two different housemates over the duration, each of whom had transferred in from out of state.

The first one was from Miami, Florida and had never left their state before.

Army Surplus store trip.

The second was an international student from Hokkaido in northern Japan. Finally, somewhere that gets snow! But his folks were in the diplomatic service, so he’d grown up in Tahiti.

I provided a lot of business to that surplus store.

Having a free day for once in my life, I decided to shut myself off in my room and play Roller Coaster Tycoon. After spending nearly the entire day building a theme park and rides, I eventually come out of my room to eat, and my roommate gives me a very awkward look.

Roommate: “Earlier, I had to peek into your room to see what you were doing because I kept hearing what sounded like a little kid screaming!”

I rent a basement room in a large home shared with many others. There is one other woman who rents a room in the basement, who loves her TV a bit too much. She has the same televangelist on non-stop, and I mean that quite literally. She’s gone four days straight without turning the TV off or changing the channel on more than one occasion.

The reason I know that it’s a televangelist she is listening to is that the walls between our room are paper-thin, and she keeps the volume up so high that I can hear it so clearly it may as well be playing on my TV.

I’ve talked to her about this many times. She says she will keep the volume lower or start using a sleep timer at night, but she only keeps to her promise for one or two days before she reverts to her previous behavior.

I’ve downloaded a white noise app on my phone and have to keep it running at maximum volume to drown out her tv to have any chance of doing anything in my room, but even with the white noise, I can hear the TV; it’s just somewhat easier to ignore it.

That was until one day when she decided her TV wasn’t loud enough, and turned her volume up even more! Now, even at max volume, my phone could not drown out the TV. I could hear every word coming through loud and clear despite my best efforts.

I attempted to go to bed at 11:30 PM, hearing a televangelist telling me to repent my sins. At 12:00 AM, I’m still awake, being told I should turn the other cheek. By 12:30 AM, I’m told God has plans for me, plans that evidently involve me never getting to sleep again. By 1 AM, I have still not had a wink of sleep and am wondering if the Lord’s forgiveness would extend to my violating that whole ‘thou shalt not kill’ commandment just this once.

So, I headed over to the circuit breaker and flicked the switch to [Roommate]’s room off and back on, figuring that we tripped circuits often enough in the very old and poorly wired house that no one would be able to prove I’d done it intentionally. Then I finally went to bed to the delicious sound of silence.

I spoke with my roommate about the volume of her TV the next day, and it went down to her usual volume at least. But that one night of sleeping in silence was so glorious, I couldn’t help but try the trick again a few nights later. And then a few nights after that.

At this point, my bedtime routine involves padding over to the circuit breaker in my socks as I brush my teeth so I can hit that wonderful magic switch to turn off God’s words for the night. I’ve been doing this for months now, and [Roommate] still hasn’t commented on it. I’m not sure if she has even realized it’s happening. I only wish I could justify doing it when she was awake and would notice.