“Um. Dude. You might want to leave work…”
“Uh…why?”
“Well, we have to be out of the apartment by five tonight, or they’ll be calling the police to escort us out…”
At some point in everyone’s lives they’ve had a stupid-af-era. If you’ve never had one of those, you’re the exception, not the rule. Count yourself lucky, too, because you probably have minimal debt, own an appliance larger than a blender, and you know what an annuity is, and you likely have one.
So, none of the above is me. I’ve had my stupid-af-era, and to be quite honest, I’m not sure I ever left said time in my life.
Back when I moved out of my parents’ for the first time, I lived with two of my best friends.
We were all almost 21, and so idiotic it was a wonder anyone was brave enough to give us our own apartment.
We apartment hunted for a long time, wanting a cheap apartment in a not cheap neighborhood. Finally, we had to settle on a two bed, one bath. Best Friend #1 and I had to share a room, but it was worth not being woken up by my dad banging on my door, looking for the crusted-over bowls hiding under my bed.
Living on our own was better than I had ever dreamed it would be. On the first night, I overflowed the toilet. The second night, our secondhand dryer broke. On the third night, we spilled Sour Apple Pucker on the carpet. Really, we should have stopped while we were ahead. Yet, every moment was magic, because independence was a beautiful thing.
It was simply glorious being footloose and anal-retentive-parent-free.
We stayed up till all hours, drinking Bartles & Jaymes Wine Coolers and watching Santa Clause 2.
No one (Mom) ever yelled at me for hogging up the phone line so I could change my AIM away message twenty times in one day.
If all we wanted in the fridge was a jar of questionable pickles and eight varieties of Boones Farm, so be it.
We were independent ladies, forging our way in the world.
Along with the wild 8-and-up card game nights, we also had nights when we fought.
My two best friends, while being my good friends, didn’t exactly love each other.
One was too over-bearing and motherly. The other left her thongs, crotch up, in the bathroom.
Some nights, we’d throw keyboards, curling irons, or said thongs at each other.
Other nights, we’d drown each other out with loud mariachi music.
During the six months that we lived in the apartment, we never once got a complaint from a neighbor. I’m not really sure how that was even possible. Maybe our downstairs neighbors were as loud and obnoxious as us? Or, they were stone-deaf.
This gorgeous chaos soon came to a head after Best Friend #2 brought home a cat, which was against our lease agreement (it also didn’t help that the little fucker’s favorite thing to do was hide under the couch or behind the bedskirt and then attach itself to our flesh when we least expected it).
Best Friend #1 and I were a lot of annoying, juvenile things, and one of those things was we were big rule followers (I guess that didn’t apply to underage drinking, though). As soon as we could, we returned the cat to the humane society.
Obviously, hijaking someone’s cat and taking it back to the cat store doesn’t sit well with some people (most people).
This single act started an epic war between three extremely petty, passive-aggressive bimbos.
Because living at the apartment was becoming awkward as fuck, Best Friend #1 went back home and I sought refuge at the new boyfriend’s house.
When the portion of the power bill owed by Best Friend #2 wasn’t paid, we snuck into the apartment and removed every single lightbulb. Our not-quite-fully-developed brains figured this was the obvious solution to an issue that could have been handled by simple communication.
Best Friend (or Enemy, at this point) #2, went to management and told them all about our drama.
Turns out, shady apartment managers don’t like dealing with dumb college girl drama.
They didn’t even want to hear it and told us we all had to be moved out before 5 PM that same day.
After quite a few years under my belt, and some serious renting experience, I realize now that what they did was likely illegal.
Well, after the phone call from Best Friend #1, suggesting I maybe come home to completely vacate in less than 5 hours, I called my mom.
(Shamefully, I’m pretty certain that every gray hair and wrinkle on my mother’s body is thanks to my brother and I.)
Her response was: “Well, that’s just fabulous. You better call every Goddamn person you know to help you. You also better call your father, because I’m not. Good luck with that and goodbye.”
At some point during the Great Pack Up, Best Friend #1’s mom was on her hands and knees, in the kitchen, frantically throwing kitchen items into a box while simultaneously yelling about how disgusting we were.
My brother was vacuuming for the first time in his life, going over and over every square inch of carpet like his life depended on it.
My aunt was asking what she thought we should do about the moldy towels in our 6-months-broken dryer.
My mom was yelling orders at all of our family and friends, and even some random people she caught walking down the street.
My cousins were hauling loose items like lamps, throw pillows and towels to our cars, while cursing us under their breath.
Best Friend # 1 and I were throwing belongings into boxes, not caring whose crap it was. I think there’s still some random storage shed somewhere with our priceless Anne Geddes art and plastic blow up lounge chairs.
And, Best Friend #2? What was she doing? At precisely T-Minus two hours, she was still crying in her room.
After attempts by my mom and Best Friend #1’s mom, my dad had to finally pound on her door and threaten her with his dad voice. Eventually, she appeared with 85 garbage bags, filled to the brim with her stuff, ready to be hauled out.
Somehow, we all (Mom, Dad, Brother, Best Friend #1’s mom, dad, and brother, Best Friend #2, a handful of friends, my cousins, and random passerby) managed to leave the place looking spotless (not even a random hanger or a half-used roll of TP was left) with only two minutes to spare.
I learned a lot of lessons from my first time living on my own. Namely, don’t live with friends and don’t leave bitchy notes for your roommates that read, “I love waking up to your bowel movements everyday. Can you please run the fan and courtesy flush? Also, the phone bill is due. K thanks.”
I’m still learning.
I just learned the other day that disposals aren’t made to mash up large quantities of food. They are just for those odd bits. Who woulda thunk?
Also, don’t prop up your feet that have been in your sweaty shoes all day on the coffee table within five feet of someone. Especially when they’re eating.
So, even though I’m doing slightly better than I was when I first lived on my own, somedays, I think I’m still firmly planted in the stupid-af-era. And, some days, I change the batteries in the smoke detector all on my own.
These days, Best Friend #1 is winning at life. She owns her own home and seems to always be jetting off on some trip. The bitch.
Best Friend #2 is married with two beautiful children. I don’t think she owns a cat.
For some reason, this is the only picture I could find of our first apartment. Notice the message board, where super friendly (bitchy) messages were written. I have no idea who the half-naked guy is, but a poster of a wet/greased up/sweaty guy in the kitchen is always a good idea. Also, WTF is happening with my “bangs”?
Fatty McCupcakes has been nominated in the Funniest Blogger category for the Annual Bloggers Bash Awards. If this gave you a chuckle, I’d really appreciate the love! You can vote HERE! Thank you, and as Leslie Knope would say, “I love you and I like you.”
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Rants, Ramblings, and Regrets
I loved this story, really made me reminisce about my times in my rented places. It’s funny, when I lived with 3 others, the place was never too bad… Things went down hill when there were just two of us though! But we’re still best friends, so we have that going for us! Amazing the Stupid AF stage of our lives, when we’re trusted as Adults but really, really, shouldn’t be!
BUAHAHAHAHAHA! That is so true that we really shouldn’t be trusted at adults at this stage! Not even a little bit should we be trusted 😂😂😂
Haha I love this. I’ve been through several stupid-af-eras. Oh and I retched slightly at “thongs, crotch up” haha. I definitely had a housemate like that.
BUAHAHAHAHA! It was always a great sight first thing in the morning 😂🙈
Hahahaha, I don’t know how you remember things like this! 😂😂 I also don’t remember the boons farm! The nasty letters and the taking the light bulbs away, yes. The having to be out by 5, no. Not one of our finer moments.
You don’t remember that they wanted us out by 5?? OMG. That was the scariest, most hilarious day of my life 😂😂😂
Hilarious! And this post makes me so glad I never had to endure roommates!
Girl, you are SOOOOO lucky! Since these ladies were friends, we had more good times than bad, so it was worth it. I could tell you about some other “lovely” roommates I’ve had. Oh boy!!
I’d love to read that… Future blog post? 😉
Definitely maybe!!
I’ve only had one roommate. She too was a best friend going in, a mortal enemy coming out. Our lease was for 9 months (thank God!). In that 9 months, she took my half of rent and spent it elsewhere, not able to cover rent on 5 different occasions. She also got knocked up (NOT by her boyfriend of 5 years) 6 months in and locked herself in the shared bathroom for hours every morning with morning sickness. She was a piece of work.
OMG!! Yup! That sounds about right, though. Living with friends is really never a good idea. Later on, because I never learn my lesson, I lived with another friend. She had all of these really mean friends who would sit on my couch and look at me like I was invading THEIR space. Ugh. Definitely mortal enemy status now!
This makes me feel like my bad roommate experiences were tame!
LOL!!
This makes me so happy! I looooved living with friends back at uni!
I spent one year living in a glorified cupboard (slightly Harry-potter-esque) My room was large enough for a single bed and a teeny wardrobe, but there was not really any space to actually stand! Sigh.
Then we moved down the road and had MASSIVE amazing rooms, but we always had polite crack dealers standing at our front door. I didn’t think it was strange until I moved to a safer area and realised some places in London don’t come with resident dealers!
We were too poor to drink in the pubs/clubs, so we’d just drink a bottle of wine before going out. Then we’d come home, buy falafel wraps and then fall asleep eating them so we’d wake up surrounded by food. So glamourous! Once we decided to eat tomato soup in the middle of the night after clubbing. I was sooo excited to eat it, that I dropped the hot bowl once it was ready. Our tiny kitchen was totally covered in orange-soup as if some sort of trump-murder had taken place. Plus we were too drunk and sad (to have lost the soup) to clean up…so I had to clean it when it was sort of crusty the next morning. Good times eh!?
BUAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HILARIOUS! Sounds like you had some seriously good times! I had an apartment that had resident dealers too!
I didn’t mention that the wine we used to drink was 2 bottles for £5 from the corner store. It was so, so terrible. I can’t believe we were able to 1. drink it and 2. cope with the inevitable hangovers that bad wines provides!!
That makes my head hurt just reading that 😂😂
And this whole narrative is exactly why I keep telling people who ask my why I don’t move out from my mother’s home and get roommates get the eye-roll. I’m messy enough on my own but when I have a place to myself I’m neat as crap. If I had someone else with me that wasn’t neat, I’d probably have a come apart. I’m just plain weird.
I agree, lady. It faced with the option, I’d choose my mom over a roommate ANY DAY!
Bahaha I love this story! You should probably go on the hunt for the blow-up chairs! Those things were hot commodities back in the day (although, not at all comfortable). We had a giant poster of Orlando Bloom in our kitchen, as well as a giant (probably over 8 feet tall) mirror we found in the alley…
Those blow up chairs were the SHIT! But, they got really sweaty and sticky 😂😂. That mirror sounds awesome!!
Haha it was, and very convenient… until someone knocked it over and it smashed… at my 21st birthday party… 🙈😹
Oh shit! That’s 7 years bad luck!!
For the idiot who broke it! (Wasn’t me!)
Yup! Yikes. How are they doing so far? 😜
Well, we don’t really hang out anymore– so I guess the bad luck is true! 😹
LOL 😂😂😂😂😂
HAHA! This took me back to when I shared a flat with my Best friend and another girl. None of us could cook but we loved a drink so every weekend was house party time!
Thank God there were no ‘crotch up thongs’ lying around!!
HAHA! We were the same way. All we could cook were poached eggs and we had a waffle maker. That’s all we ate everyday for 6 months 😂
🤣🤣🤣 Luckily for us, we had a fish and chip shop very close by so when we were flush we dined on that!!!
That’s perfect!
I swear you are going to make me pee my pants!
😂😂😂
Watching my friends go through shit like this (and even worse drama, let me tell you… there was a sword, and we were pretty sure one guy never left and just lived in the walls) is the reason I never had roommates. Everyone else’s horror stories and drama was enough to scare me out of it.
“…we were pretty sure one guy never left and just lived in the walls.” DEAD 😂😂😂😂😂😂
He might be, by now; we sealed up the crawlspace door when we found it. 😛
That’s HILARIOUS 😂😂
That’s a sweet ass computer in the pic! Loved the story! So funny!
LOL! That was the newest, coolest model then 😂😂
I think so! It’s even grey! Wow!
😂😂😂
This is too funny!
Thanks, friend!!
I finally have wifi!!! Lol!!! And I commented on Facebook and not here and I kind of went to sleep thinking about you (homo?!) hahaha! Anyways! I have a room mate story I’ve never really written about and you inspired me but I have a shit list of rants to punish the world with before that one. This was awesome and relatable and as usual hysterical 🤗
I can’t wait for your post about it!!!!!
It’s on my list LOL I have so many unfinished drafts right now and I’m trying to come up with a schedule and I’m afraid to commit or make promises I can’t keep. Like I wish I could write on Tuesdays and Saturdays and BAM. Ugh. Really want to try it.
Girl, I struggle with finding the time, too. I also have a million unfinished drafts! But, establishing a schedule has helped me immensely. It’s also helpful to my readers to know when to expect a post from me.
I’m totally going to close my eyes and pick a day or two and make it happen lol thanks for the motivation 🙂
Of course!!!
Hilarious! Been there, got the t-shirt.
“Been there, got the t-shirt”!!! Brilliant 😂😂😂😂
Sadly I don’t have any stupid stories, I’m pretty boring!! I would say my “best” is diving into a bush at 2am after pulling a prank and being concerned that my Kate Spade shoes would pick up poison ivy haha!
HAHAHAHA! That’s a pretty good one, though!
We are stupid AF too. The stuff we did! We were so immature xx
HAHA! I think it’s a rite of passage!
OMG this story is the best thing I’ve read today. I definitely had some moments like this in my college days. I think all my “stupid” stories probably come from living in an apartment on campus for two years.
Thank you for reading! Oh man! My friends who lived on campus have stories far better than mine!
Oh wow! Massive flashbacks to my early twenties…and lots of similarities, although I always lived with lads. Oh my, the stories I could tell. I LOVED reading yours 😍😍
Thank you and I hope you’ll write about yours sometime!
This made me laugh so much, and reminded me why I have never lived with any of my friends! I find a weekend with someone is enough!
HAHA! Exactly! Usually after a weekend trip with a friend I’m good for awhile 😂😂
I only had one roommate – because I was such a ridiculous scaredy-cat, naturally I found a high school classmate going to the same college (who was just as freaked out at the prospect) and we agreed to room together the first year. Which turned into two, then after a year of showing our independence by living in “singles” (how we both managed to hit the room lottery, I’ll never know) down the hall from each other, we rented an on-campus apartment together. We were both so amazeballingly uptight about shit, that we had about zero drama.
Jump ahead to the following year – she graduated & moved out, no muss, no fuss. I didn’t (apparently, you’re supposed to actually attend the classes you sign up for), so I stayed on by myself (I believe at two times the ridiculously high rent) for the fall semester. About that same time, I met my first serious boyfriend – our first date was in July, and by the end of August, he’d essentially moved in. Let’s just say that my time there ended with a padlocked door (with a bunch of our stuff still on the other side of it), and no college degree for me…
Oh, and I’d swear that was one of the Solo Flex posters that made the rounds in the 80s. It seems wicked familiar to me – in fact, I’m pretty sure somewhere I have a picture of our apartment living room with the poster of the guy taking off his tank top… *swoon*
HAHA! Too funny!
OH MY GOODNESS! What happened??
Let’s just say, we had a difference of opinion with the landlord. He felt we should still pay rent since a bunch of our stuff was still there (we’d moved about an hour away by that point). We felt he should be patient with us, and not charge us anything while we took our own sweet time coming back to get the rest. In hindsight, he may have had a point… 😛
Oh, the minds of young people!!! 😂
Ha ha I loved it! Never had the pleasure or not of room mates just my sister…I think we are still friends…lol
I’m glad you and your sister are still on speaking terms 😜
Loved the post and loved the comments even more…Oh to be young again 🙂
Me too! This post just gets better and better with all the comments. 🙂
It’s the comments which makes blogging worthwhile isn’t it? I love the interaction 🙂
YESSSS! My favorite part of blogging ❤️
LOL! Agreed!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️
I’m having a stupid AF moment right now, reading this while making dinner. Just cremated my onions.
BUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! RIP onions 😂😂😂😂😂
Oh, yes! Girls can be difficult to live with, lol! I spent one year living with six other girls – I couldn’t wait to get out of there when the day came. NON-STOP drama! I do love that you had a herd of helpers that were all frienzied at the end. I kinda wish you had a video of it all. 😉
Ooh. Living with six girls?! No thanks! I can totally see how that’d be nonstop drama! A video would have been HILARIOUS!
I did the roommate thing ONE time. He was my best friend all through high school. We did everything together for years. We had spent the night at each other’s houses hundreds of times.
After high school, we got a cheap bachelor pad and were excited to be out on our own. It was far from fun.
1. He was an asshole about the thermostat
2. He never finished a plate of food and would always leave that half-eaten plate beside his chair to crust over for the next few days.
3. We had a roach problem. So one day he comes home from work with a big bomb and sets it off in the kitchen. He then comes into the living room and says, “I just took care of our bug problem, but we have to leave the house for the next eight hours.” That meant that I had approximately 15 seconds to get out before dying and could not return until 2 a.m. And we both had to be at work at 7 the next morning.
4. He actually called my mom a few times to complain about me so she could tell me his issues.
We had to end the roommate situation before we started to hate each other.
A few years later, he slept with my wife. So, now we’ll definitely never be roommates again.
Oh, SHIT. He sounds like he was a real peach!