COLUMN: Worst roommate ever
If you've never lived with a KKK-mask-wearing, drug-dealing, pervert, I guarantee my roommate story beats yours.
I had Alan.
I went into my first residence hall room, an innocent and naive kid right out of high school. Living with Alan was real-world exposure to the same degree of a child learning to swim by being hurled into the deep end of a stormy wave-pool containing sharks, alligators and electric eels.
I'll say this for him: Alan is unforgettable.
He knew tons about drugs and had plenty, which he kept under his bed. He had lots of customers, even some gangs from his hometown Detroit. I've never done drugs, but admittedly, our room smelled temptingly euphoric those first weeks. Whenever I would drive home to Grand Rapids, I used to walk through the door, "Hey, Mom, want to get high? Just smell my jacket!"
Soon, however, everything was touched with Alan's stench and our room turned foul-tasting when the pot started to stink. I also didn't appreciate he sometimes smoked cigarettes in bed.
Once I came home exhausted and collapsed into my bed only to have my pillow puff out a horrible cloud of smoke into my face.
I can't tell you what Alan was like in class because I never saw him go. His days were spent sleeping, his nights with friends. They sat in our main room watching Cheech and Chong or playing video-games, which usually ended with Alan throwing and breaking his controller.
One of his friends, whom I'm certain stole my roll of washing machine quarters, looked like a creepy Jesus and used to talk enthusiastically about his stash of child porn.
Alan had "weed porn" (think naked, high teenagers) which he left as his computer screensaver in the main living room.
In response to our RA handing out condoms with a sticker, "Just Protect It," Alan hung a metal coat hanger on our door with a sign, "Just Abort It."
He referred to our gay friends as "fags" to their faces, and constantly used the n-word. He even had a cartoon of lynched blacks being used as hammocks.
Then came the day when Alan put up a KKK mask on his side of the wall. It was discovered by my black friend.
I'll never forget the shouting match I had with Alan that night. Half our dorm heard it.
I told our RA everything about Alan's drugs and the mask. My RA, whom I still love and respect, essentially told me his hands were tied.
A coldness settled between us after that argument. We ignored each other for the entire second semester. When he left at the end of term, I picked up the trash he left behind and paid for the damages his side of the room had suffered.
I've never gone in blind since.
