My flatmates are slobs. I am not the cleanest person in the world, but I am starting to realize that my own conception of myself as a slob is mostly trying to live up to my parents moronically high standards (both of my parents dry off their shower door after they shower. I guess they are terribly concerned that someone might come by the house and discover their dirty little secret, that they bathe regularly!). By contrast, I wouldn’t be surprised if i caught my flatmates in a pool of their own filth.

That’s nicer than the first draft of this I wrote. Last night one of them came home with a shit-ton of fried chicken no one has asked for, and it was dolled out equally among us. That act of kindness calmed me down significant, even for me to forgive the fact that sink was still full of dishes after a week, and that I had to hold my pressure pot above their pile of sullied dishes and run the tap over it till the pressure released. This morning the other went to find out why our landlord was trying to over bill us. And of course, we spent April and May watching Game of Thrones and drinking weapons grade beer, like a big happy family. So they aren’t exactly the worst people in the world.

But their virtues are fairly limited.

Both of my flatmates are kind of ridiculous people, but I can only complain so much about how they don’t wash dishes or just slobs generally. They are both in their mid 20’s and still do whipits to get high. They really should be moving on to harder drugs, and not just doing the shit middle school kids do.

What is harder to sit silently by are the acts of failure and stupidity. I have mentioned previously that one of my flatmate is massively obese and wanting to get his shit together. He has spurts of motivation, where he tries to get his life in order by cleaning the house and purchasing a ton of actual ingredients which he threatens to turn into food. He never gets to that part, because work is hard and cooking is work, but calling Domino’s and playing Apex Legends is not.

That’s the kind of shit that kills me, not just because I have seen him dump so much of this rotted uneaten food away, but because it kind of hurts to watch someone fail at things.

When he hits these positive motivation charges, he will go out and spend a lot of money on shit he doesn’t need. One month it was a top of the line blender. Then it was a spice rack and loads of tupperware. That month will end, and he will complain about not having money (after just ordering some domino’s pizza).

I tried to stop him this past month. He was thinking about buying a food processor. As far as kitchen tools go it is pretty important, but you really don’t need it if you are a beginner who is cooking for himself. I suggest he just makes simple things, but he keeps talking about all the things he wants to make with a food processor. The list is: hummus.

I can see I won’t win this fight. And then a few days later, he is talking to me about which one he wants to buy – a top of the line restaurant grade model that costs 250$ and has a 14 cups load. at which point I suggest a more modest model, which gets me this reply:

“I’ve seen recipes that require a 14 cup food processor!”

No, he fucking hasn’t. I don’t think he had stopped to consider what he is saying. A recipe that outright calls for a 14 cup food processor would assume that you are cooking for a military brigade. Recipes may call for a food processor, but they would never specify the size.

“I don’t believe you. That’s not anything anyone needs unless you work in a restaurant”

But I actually let it go after that. The older I get the more I realize that no one respects me enough to listen to what I say. I have gotten very good at knowing when an argument is pointless, and have learned to just bow out. His buying this has nothing to do with actually getting his life together. That much should be obvious.

The food processor was purchased. It arrived and sat on our kitchen table for about a  week. Then it got shelved. As of this writing, it has never been used. (UPDATE FROM THE FUTURE: Four and a half months since purchasing the food processor and it still remains unused)

The moronic idea du jour is that he is now trying to listen to audiobooks. However, he doesn’t have the time to do this during the day (after all, the video games aren’t going to play themselves) so he listens to them at night, while he sleeps. He syncs a portable speaker to his phone and plays the file just loud enough for everyone in the house to hear it as well. I go to bed hours before this guy, so I don’t really hear it till I a wake up the next morning. But considering that this guy is perpetually stoned, and gets drunk every night to I don’t think he hears it either.

I didn’t bother to say anything about this.

The other day he was talking about getting a bike, and how this was going to get him out of the house more. I kind of hinted at the fact that I didn’t think it would, but I didn’t fight him on it. I am expecting there to soon be an unused bike just hanging out at the house.