Years ago, during my senior year of college, I lived in an on-campus apartment with five other girls. When I moved in, I brought my Playstation and Super Nintendo with me. I kept the Playstation in my room and left the SNES in the common room for my roommates and me to play. One of the games I brought for the SNES was “Tetris 2” (along with other staples, like “Legend of Zelda” and “Super Mario Brothers”).

One morning, I was getting ready to leave. I had two back-to-back classes and was planning to grab lunch before returning to the apartment. One of my roommates was up playing “Tetris”. We chatted about our classes — she had one in an hour — and then I left.

When I got back about four hours later, the same roommate was playing “Tetris” again. I laughed when I saw her playing.

Me: “Playing Tetris again?”

She didn’t look up from the game.

Roommate: “Not again. Still.” 

At some point during that year, all of my roommates missed an entire day of classes to play “Tetris”. I’m not sure if I should feel proud or guilty.

I have a roommate, and my roommate has a cat. I had a spider plant, and my roommate’s cat had a snack. We’ve just moved into a new basement suite, and she celebrated by bringing home a cactus.

Roommate: *Excited* “I found a plant that my cat won’t kill!”

Me: “Your cat won’t, but you will.”

My roommate looks a bit hurt and a lot offended, so I elaborate.

Me: “Your bedroom doesn’t have any windows, remember?”

Roommate: *Looks around* “CRAP!”

She ended up keeping it in the bathroom window… that was underneath a deck. I don’t think it died, but I’m not sure it lived, either.

I will do everything in my power to never have roommates again. I tried three times and all of them ended horribly.

My favorite was the one who kicked me out because I wouldn’t leave my senior, longhaired, deaf dog with a heart condition outside in the middle of summer in a yard he could easily escape.

I left the dog in my room, and my roommate kicked me out the same day.

I’d moved in with a former roommate, but the lease was still under his name. After two months, the situation was untenable, so I moved out again. He had taken the lease on his own, so he had the income to support living alone, right?

That’s what I’d told my eighteen-year-old self. What I didn’t know is that I beat him out the door by a month. He even admitted that he’d planned to do a midnight move and stick me with an apartment that I couldn’t afford on my own.

I was in need of lodging for just a few months while working on a project a day’s travel from home. Because the town was booming, empty apartments were unheard of and most people had a couple of roomies in each bedroom plus a couple in the living room. I was thrilled to find a sole tenant looking to fill his second bedroom. It was a nice building, nice location, AND fair rent, so I jumped on the opportunity.

When I arrived with my stuff, there was an eviction notice on the door. My new roomie told me it was nothing to worry about. He said he had been a couple of days late with the rent and the building manager overreacted. That sounded okay.

As I settled in over the next few days, I got to know [Roomie] a bit and learned he was on his first-ever job, making more than double minimum wage for doing almost nothing. Lucky? No, his dad had pulled strings to get him the job. Good for him.

I also noticed that [Roomie] seemed to take every opportunity to waste money. He had the nicest leather couch I’d ever seen. Several designer sunglasses boxes lay around, each sporting a price tag of about $300. He said he just kept scratching them and needing new ones. He had a huge, artistic blown glass bong that he proudly said cost $750. The fridge was full of rotting takeout, yet every night he ordered more because he found leftovers unappetizing. He’d order enough for several people and stuff the extra in the fridge, never to be touched again until I threw it out for being too moldy.

Between his easy work, with not just great pay but many chances to work overtime shifts at double rate, and his constant squandering, he certainly didn’t seem like someone on the brink of homelessness.

But a week after I moved in, there was another eviction notice. And a week later, another.

I went to speak with the building manager myself to find out what was really going on. Turns out [Roomie] hadn’t paid a cent in months! She told me not to be afraid; if he got kicked out, I could keep staying, as she didn’t want the fuss of looking too hard for a new tenant. So, relieved of the anxiety that my own fate was at stake, I continued watching as merely a curious observer and slight friend.

I tried to gently encourage frugal choices. I suggested to [Roomie] that he might do the same when I was cooking up a big pot of stew and putting it in Tupperware for my week’s meals. When he’d announce he was ordering pizza, I’d suggest he eat last night’s. I even asked him directly if he wanted help planning a budget. But he just waved it all off, insisting that he would be fine.

The eviction notices kept coming about weekly. They stopped demanding that he pay back rent OR move out and started demanding that he be gone by a deadline. Starting a month before the deadline, the notices began to include threats that if he was not gone by then, his belongings would be moved out for him.

He kept telling me it was fine, he had a plan, he had things under control, and she didn’t mean any of it.

One day, I had just gotten to bed after a long shift when I heard a pitiful gasping, sniffling sound from the kitchen and then my name whimpered meekly. I ran out to find [Roomie] white as a sheet, doubled over as if gut-shot, holding himself up by clutching the counter. I could tell his denial had cracked and he finally was facing what a mess he’d made of his finances.

Hyperventilating, he gasped my name twice more, and then, right before he began to cry, he said, “She’s kicking me out! I never saw it coming!”

Never. Saw. It. Coming.