(It’s 5:30 am, and I’m just about to leave to go to work after having a rough morning. I’m a nurse with a 12-hour shift to look forward to. As I’m getting my shoes on, my roommate emerges from her room, chipper and perky.)

Roommate: “Good morning, [My Name]!”

Me: *groaning* “Well, it’s morning, at least.”

Roommate: *suddenly angry* “Well, jeez, who peed in your cornflakes this morning? I was trying to be nice!”

Me: “I told you last night that I had to be up at four am this morning, and the friends you invited over made so much noise that it woke me up… and they stayed until 12:30. I took two steps out of my room this morning, and your cat sank her claws into my leg, deep enough to draw blood, and started yowling because she thought I was going to feed her. I finally got to the bathroom and found that your other cat had clawed my brand-new towels down from the rack and taken a dump on them. Now I get to go spend 12 hours wiping the butts of people who either think I’m attacking them, or think I’m their long-dead wife. That’s why it’s ‘morning’ and not ‘good morning.’”

Roommate: “Well, there’s no need to be a b**** about It!”

(I’d been thinking about moving out for a while, but that was the final nail in the coffin. I moved in with my boyfriend just as soon as I could get my stuff packed, and eighteen months later, we still get along just fine. We have a dog; after my roommate’s little monsters, I have no desire at all to get a cat. Last I heard, she still had trouble with them pooping on her bed and linens.)

(My roommate’s best friend recently had a nasty breakup, and moved in with us until she can get back on her feet. I don’t really like her; I think she’s kind of petty, and she’s constantly getting angry about things that I consider pretty inconsequential. When this happens, she claims it’s because of my white privilege, no matter what the issue is about. We’re both Caucasian and female, and after a month or so of this, I’m so sick of it that I usually just leave the room. At work one day, I go to pull my lunch out of the fridge, and sigh.)

Coworker #1: “Dude, what’s wrong?”

Me: “Oh, I picked up samosas for lunch, and I was really looking forward to them, but [Accidental Roommate] was guilt-tripping me about it earlier, that it’s not my culture and I shouldn’t be stealing someone else’s cuisine and traditions.”

Coworker #2: “F****** seriously? Look around you!”

(I do… at my Hindi coworkers eating pizza and pasta, my Filipino coworker eating hummus and pita chips, my black, Muslim coworker eating tacos, my Native American coworker eating fried rice and egg rolls, etc. I have to laugh.)

Me: “Okay, fair point.”

Coworker #3: “Seriously, f*** that. Other than [Native American Coworker], everyone’s family came here from somewhere else. They were looking for better lives for themselves and their kids, which includes better food. Tell that b**** to find something worth complaining about.”

Coworker #4: “Plus, I think a lot of businesses would go under if no white people ever shopped there. My mom runs a cafe, and she always said Americans make the best customers because they don’t know how the falafel is supposed to taste, so they aren’t constantly comparing it to their mom’s and grandma’s the way all of her Middle Eastern customers are.”

(I had to laugh, and I enjoyed my samosas a lot more after that. My accidental roommate is moving out in two months, and my coworkers have preemptively started a countdown.)

(As I’m entering the apartment after my shift, my roommate walks towards me, red as a tomato.)

Roommate: “Um, [My Name], could you drive me to the emergency room?”

Me: “Why?”

Roommate: “Something, uh, got stuck…”

Me: “What?”

Roommate: “I was horny and…”

Me: “Please, I don’t need the details. Look, I know you and your girlfriend broke up. I know you’re frustrated, but this is ridiculous. As if keeping me awake at night with your moaning wasn’t bad enough. After you get this problem fixed, stop the pity party.”

(My roommate is not a bad person, but can be such an idiot. Turns out he had one of his girlfriend’s dildos up there. I introduced him to my cousin a month later. She’s pretty good at keeping him from hurting himself.)

My first year of university, my dorm floor is pretty much all first-years like myself, living alone for the first time, trying to figure out what we want to do, and desperately missing our families and friends. The very first day we move in, one girl at the far end of the hall makes it a point to ask everyone when their birthday is. We figure she’s into astrology or something, but lo and behold, whenever someone’s birthday rolls around, she has a cake or cookies ready, and leads the entire dorm floor in singing happy birthday. When we ask her about it, her response is that you don’t stop celebrating birthdays just because you’re technically a grown-up, and that we need reasons to celebrate now more than ever, now that we’re all living away from our families and stressed out by classes and trying to learn how to be adults.

As the year goes on, my dorm floor gets closer and closer. By Christmas, we’re all studying together, partying together, making exhausted Sunday brunch together, and going to each other for homework or relationship help or advice, or just to rant. The girl’s birthday is in February, and we noticed that although she bakes for everyone else, she doesn’t usually have much more than a single cookie or a bite or two of cake. One of my roommates asks her about it, and she admits that she doesn’t really like cake; she prefers fruit pie, but isn’t very good at baking it. It’s clear what we have to do.

The girl’s birthday falls right in the middle of midterms, so we are all up late studying, anyway. As soon as midnight hits, we knock on her door, wait for the, “Come in,” and the entire dorm floor files into her room, my roommate holding the cherry pie he made, lit with candles. All forty of us sing her happy birthday, and my roommate happily presents her with the pie. She is almost in tears by the end of it, and admits that she was so stressed with exams, she’d decided she wasn’t going to bother celebrating her own birthday. That won’t do, either, so we decide we’ll go out and celebrate together in a week, once midterms are done, and we stick to it.

That’s years past now, but I’m still in touch with her, and she’s still extraordinary, as a doctor and as a person, always thinking of how she can help other people. For me, though, nothing ever tops the eighteen-year-old girl trying to offer comfort and continuity to a bunch of other stressed and frightened students, and how she turned us from a bunch of strangers into a second family, and made our dorm a home!

I live in a mixed dorm and there is a shared kitchen for the entire floor. It is near Christmas and my roommates and I bake some gingerbread men and place them out with a sign with festive messages. A roommate puts up an extra sign saying, “Eat me.”

A couple hours later, on the extra sign, someone has added a title, “Gingerbread Ladies,” and drawn a gingerbread “lady” with long hair, with an arrow pointing at her crotch.

Then comes a lot of chatter guessing which of the guys has done it. The girls are completely overlooked as possible pranksters.

Soon, a second extra sign appears saying, “Go away, dudes; we’re lesbians. Signed, [Female Student #1] and [Female Student #2]. (We’re both single.)”

Yup. That’s how those two girls decided to come out. My roommate who placed the, “Eat me,” sign was actually in on it.