My roommates and I have thrown a couple of pretty big parties over the course of our college junior year. For some reason, the weekend before finals, my roommates really want to do another party.

Me: “With finals coming up next week, people aren’t going to be doing much partying. It’s finals — time to study. You guys know the drill. People will be wanting to party the next weekend once finals are over.”

They don’t care. They want to set up a party.

I don’t really want to do the party, but they’re more than welcome to put their money into it if they want to. No way am I contributing money toward any beer or alcohol. The only thing I do help with is driving them to the local liquor store that’s about three-quarters of a mile away and using my pickup truck to haul back three kegs of beer.

My two roommates spread the word about the party this coming Friday, and they talk another friend into coming over and doing the DJ stuff.

Everything is set up and ready early Friday afternoon. The evening starts and night is creeping in, and there are barely twenty people at any given time for the party. By about midnight, the first keg is empty and the second one is tapped. Usually, by 8:00 or 9:00 pm, we’re tapping the second keg, and midnight is the third keg.

A few people trickle in and out, and it’s boring. I tell my roommates this was a stupid time to do a party, and they just kind of grunt in agreement.

The kegs are kept in the basement. On the stairs leading down to the basement, you go down five steps, and on the landing is a side door leading outside. This door stays locked all the time; we never use it in the eighteen months we live at the place. Then, you turn to continue down the steps.

There are maybe a dozen people or so in the house, and it’s around 12:30 in the morning. My roommates are talking about calling it a night since the party is a bust. Right around that time, in walks a couple of guys and their girlfriends. They all pay the standard $5 for a solo cup and head downstairs.

About ten minutes later, someone we know that’s still at the party comes up to my roommates and me as we’re standing in the living room area on the main floor.

Friend: “You guys know those two couples that just came in?”

Roommate #1: “No, they were just looking for a party. Why?”

Friend: “They took the full keg out the side door.”

Roommate #2: “What?!”

The two guys and girls that just came into the party ten or fifteen minutes before were stealing the third untapped keg by using the side door on the basement stairs landing.

[Roommate #1] was the first one down the stairs and out the side door, and I was right on his heels. [Roommate #2] was slowly bringing up the rear. [Roommate #1] and I rounded the corner of the house and, sure enough, the two guys were at the street with the keg, about 100 feet away from us across the front lawn. They were about twenty feet short of their goal of putting the keg in the back of their car and driving off.

I’m faster than my roommates when running, by a long shot, and I passed my roommate easily. I was about two seconds away from reaching the guys with the keg when a beer bottle went zipping past my head and shattered against their car. My roommate knew he wasn’t fast enough to help me stop the guys, so he threw his beer bottle at them, almost hitting me in the process. The bottle missed me by about a foot and just barely missed one of the thieves. The sound and sight of the bottle shattering against their car caused them to drop the keg and try to make it to their car to get away.

I grabbed the first thief closest to me and threw him down to the ground, and I turned and grabbed the second thief before he could dive into the car and slammed him up against the car. By this time, my two roommates had caught up, and they picked the first guy I threw down and pinned him up against the car. Now the thieves’ girlfriends exited the car, and they were crying and pleading with us to not hurt their boyfriends.

I shoved the guy I had my hands on and told him to get the f*** out of there before I changed my mind. I told my roommates to let the other guy go. They protested a bit, but I told them we’d gotten the keg back and it was not worth having to deal with the cops if they got involved after we kicked the crap out of these two guys. They finally agreed and let the second guy go.

The thieves climbed into the car quickly and speed off. My roommates collected the keg and returned it to the basement.

After this incident, my roommates never wanted to hold another party at our place. I was okay with that decision.

I live in a university-granted apartment as the sole “stable” tenant, so I get to meet and see a lot of people on a semestral basis — some colorful, others less so. Sometimes, between the tenants, there is… quite a bit of friction. But never quite as much as in this story.

Meet [Danish Student] and [Polish Student]. The former studied Economics and basically came to Italy just to party while occasionally crunching a few numbers; the latter studied Political Science and was taking the whole “Erasmus (student exchange) is for studying experience” thing rather seriously. 

You’d think they would rarely interact with each other. In fact, you’d normally be right… but I ruined the peace.

How? 

As is tradition, I organized a “cultural cuisine weekend”, where each tenant cooked something they liked from their country. I started by cooking amatriciana (a traditional Italian pasta sauce) on Friday.

Danish Student: “Where is the spinach?”

Me: “Spinach doesn’t belong in amatriciana.”

Polish Student: “[My Name] obviously would know better than you would, [Danish Student].”

Danish Student: *Yelling* “Just because [My Name] lives in Italy, it doesn’t mean they know how to cook a good amatriciana! I’m more qualified than either of you; I took cooking classes in high school and you didn’t!”

[Polish Student] and I were taken aback but decided to let it slide to not ruin the vibes, and apparently, we all three enjoyed it.

The next day, it was [Danish Student]’s turn, and he decided to serve rye bread with cold cuts, which [Polish Student] didn’t like, and his reaction triggered an argument between the two.

Danish Student: “This is exactly how my mama makes it!”

Polish Student: “It’s just a matter of taste, and I don’t like it!”

It went on long enough that [Polish Student] stormed out, proclaiming:

Polish Student: “If that’s the standard, Danish cuisine is pigs’ food and penance diet!”

And he left to go pick something up at a nearby delicatessen.

I wanted to cancel the next day’s meal, but [Polish Student] insisted I let him have it. Dinner time came, and, sure enough, he had prepared bigos stew (a dish using cured meats and sauerkraut). It came out a little bit too salty, but [Danish Student] claimed:

Danish Student: “This is salt soup to accompany a tankard of vodka!”

Polish Student: “At least my stew has some flavour and consistency, unlike that rye bread. That was just peat that has been dried out in the sun and then mixed with kidney gravel!”

And it was at this point that, apparently, war was declared.

As much as I begged the housing service to just separate the two, they never intervened, so I was stuck tolerating day after day of one going into the other’s pantry to bin everything that didn’t fit their standards, the other retaliating in kind, and both of them shouting at each other about being either a “little provincial worm” or “a creaky piss-haired snob” and other such insults, giving each other passive-aggressive “tips” when even remotely close to the kitchen. 

Their feud apparently extended to campus, because other international students avoided them like the plague — but they still gossiped about them often enough.  the language exchange cafè’s personnel tried to keep them as separate as possible!

Peace was had only when [Danish Student] took his exam and then caught his flight out the day afterward, way before [Polish Student] was done. Suddenly, [Polish Student] became a whole new person and tried to be more cordial with me, but at that point, I was entirely burnt out on him and the other guy.

I guess in terms of tidiness, I’ve seen worse, but this was the most emotionally tiring experience of all!

My husband is the middle child with an older sister and a younger brother.

Being the “oopsie” baby, my brother-in-law was a bit coddled. He never really learned any life skills and is a bit of what the Internet would call an incel. At one point, we even had to tell him to take a shower because he stunk so badly. While he is extremely smart, he is the kind of person who will meet his untimely demise by being hit by a bus because he forgot to look both ways. What he makes up in book-smarts, he severely lacks in street-smarts — and social skills, for that matter. It doesn’t help that he has sort of fallen into major success so he believes life is easy.

My sister-in-law is very sweet but was also parentified by her conservative parents. While [Brother-In-Law] doesn’t know how to wipe his own a**, [Sister-In-Law] did most of the domestic work such as cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry. As a result, while she is neat, clean, and organized, she is stunted in a lot of ways. For example, she’s highly naïve, and she never had the opportunity to go to college like her brothers, and as a result, she lived at home until she was nearly thirty-four because she could never afford rent in our city.

When she does move out, it is into [Brother-In-Law]’s house. 

My dear husband and I are concerned about it for different reasons. He is concerned in case twenty-seven-year-old [Brother-In-Law] wants to bring a girl home. I am concerned that [Sister-In-Law] will become a maid. Obviously, one of us has very valid concerns and the other one is living in a fantasy world where his brother has “game”. Sure enough, one of our fears is realized.

We go to visit [Sister-In-Law], and she is doing laundry. As we are chatting, I cannot help but notice that while she tends to like men’s graphic tees, one is distinctly neck-beard gamer in nature. I keep quiet, but my husband does not.

Husband: “So, how do you like living together?”

Sister-In-Law: “It is a lot like living with Mom and Dad, but I have my own place without them, you know?”

Husband: “So, you are splitting cooking responsibilities?”

Sister-In-Law: “No. I mostly cook.”

Husband: “At least [Brother-In-Law] gets groceries, right?”

Sister-In-Law: “No… I do the shopping. I don’t mind it.”

Dear husband gives me a look that I pointedly ignore.

Me: “Well, at least you have someone to share in the cleaning?”

Sister-In-Law: “Well, [Brother-In-Law] is kind of a mess…”

Me: “Does he at least keep it to his own room?”

Sister-In-Law: *Oblivious* “I have to clean it twice a week. It is fine, though. I usually do it when I do laundry.”

Husband: “Laundry?”

Sister-In-Law: “Yeah.” *Motions to the shirt* “I am doing it right now.”

Husband: “And [Brother-In-Law]?”

Sister-In-Law: “Well, it is the least I can do. He is letting me live here. He could be living alone. It has to be hard on his dating life living with his sis.”

My husband glowers at me as I stifle laughter, knowing full well why he cannot actually find anyone to go on a second date with him. And trust me, it has more to do with him thinking it appropriate to be rude to a girl for not playing “Guild Wars 2” than living with such a kind, caring, albeit a little daft and clingy sister.

After she walks away, I turn to my husband.

Me: *Jokingly* “No wonder he doesn’t have a girlfriend; he already has the live-in maid part.”

It is their life, but I cannot imagine paying rent to do my landlord’s laundry, brother or not.

We are interviewing people for a room in the flatshare I live in. As two rooms are available at the same time, the only people interviewing are [Flatmate] and me. We find a couple of people we like and meet with them, and after they have agreed, we have them come to sign the contracts.

The first guy comes over, and we chat amicably about nothing too serious. Suddenly, [Flatmate] starts telling us how she really wishes she could learn to appreciate boobs. I have no idea what to say to this and try laughing it off with a joke. At this, she starts ranting.

Flatmate: “I can’t wait until 2049 when the vaccine for heterosexuality will be available. All humans will have to take it and become homosexual so they never have kids, and global warming will be solved.”

I am trying to keep a straight face, as this is completely out of character for her. I am also praying to any deity right there and then that the new guy doesn’t tear up the contract and walk out of there. Luckily, he doesn’t, but I am creeped out.

I think that will be the end of odd conversations, but at the signing for the second room, we get another one. This time, [Flatmate] rants about the brilliance of communism and how Stalin was right with the purges. Yeah, she’s now advocating mass murder, but it’s okay as it was done by the left.

I find myself breaking my atheism for the second time that week praying to deities known and unknown. The second guy signs up and I breathe a sigh of relief.

[Flatmate] left a few months later, and my other flatmates and I still get a chuckle out of this at dinner occasionally. She’s the craziest flatmate I’ve had, and that was really out of character for her. I’m still surprised it wasn’t some kind of really weird test from her side.

My friend and roommate had some serious and unexpected medical issues this particular semester. She ended up missing about a month’s worth of classes and assignments, which is very much NOT an easy thing to make up at the college level, so she’s currently bouncing between talking to the school, her professors, and her parents to figure out what she’s going to do.

I walk into her room to show her something, and she’s crying while on speakerphone with her mother. Before I can say anything, she chokes out, “Can you give me a moment?” so I leave her be.

I eventually head out to the main area of our apartment and see that she has relocated to our couch.

Me: “Are you okay?”

Friend: *Still clearly choked up* “Yeah, my mom and I are just discussing school options.”

I just nod and leave her be since she’s still on the phone, assuming she’s just over-stressed from everything going on. Half an hour later, she barges into my room half-hysterical and half-bawling.

Friend: “Good news! My dog isn’t being put down!”

Me: “What?!“

Friend: “So, my mom told me [Dog] has been having pain at night and then immediately followed it with, ‘Can you please come home soon?’ All in a very sad tone. I thought she was implying she was going to be put down.” 

At this point, I’m just dumbstruck and staring at her.

Friend: “She thought I was crying over everything going on with school until I yelled, ‘CAN WE PLEASE NOT TALK ABOUT SCHOOL S*** WHEN YOU JUST TOLD ME MY DOG IS GOING TO DIE?'”

Me: “Let me get this straight. You thought your mother was having your dog put down and you didn’t ask for any sort of clarification?”

Friend: “I thought it was implied!”

Me: “And you just accepted that without getting any answers about the situation?!”

Friend: *Pauses* “Yes.”

I love my friend dearly, but she makes me want to put my head through a wall. [Dog] is fine and was prescribed some doggy pain meds.