A Stench of Great Proportions

Reflecting back, I have had many terrible roommates. From discussion, it would appear this isn't normal for a majority of folks. My poor string of roommates can be attributed to bad luck, laziness, and a high threshold for bullshit. Now listen as I write of a terrible roommate, whose name shall not be uttered out of respect for him and the pure rage it brings to me.

The start of my problems began in September 08. I had recently transferred from University of Rochester to the University of Cincinnati, and due to inept bureaucracy all my credits didn't transfer. I should have been a sophomore, but to UC I was a freshmen. And I was denied upper class housing as a result of this. It could have been worse, because I could have been shit of luck with housing. I swallowed my pride and moved early to get the prime position. Because I was late in signing up, I was placed with 3 other roommates in very confined settings. I prayed I wasn't stuck with people who were unbearable, and my prayers were surprisingly answered. I ended up with only 2 roommates instead of 3, and both were friendly gentlemen. The first was a large high school football player, but we managed to hit it off. The second was a guy from a small farm town in Ohio (nearest restaurant was a Buffalo Wild Wings 30 min. away), and he was pretty clever to boot.

Things were perfect, I got along with them very well. However, as I mentioned we had three people in a four person room. As many people have encountered in college, chances are the freshmen dorms have overflow rooms and the university likes to move people out of them as soon as possible. November rolls around, and the football roommate burst in one evening bringing dire news. A new roommate was coming and he was terrible. Of course I thought he was over compensating, because the jock has a tenancy to brand all things "different" as bad. So, all three of us hung in suspense as our new roommate entered. There was a knock, and in came the new comer wearing one of these:



Fuck.

I enjoy anime, but I don't advertise it or make a fool out of myself. And the prime reason I dislike the generic anime fan could be found in this new roommate. He had posters from Digimon, a fake samurai sword, a punching bag, and a poster on how to be a ninja. He was most certainly obnoxious, and when he saw I had anime on my computer he told me everything he liked. He was overweight, and quickly proved to have zero concept of organization or cleanliness. The worst part about him reared its ugly head a week after he moved in. His side of the room quickly smelled, well lets go with interesting. But I had faith in my fellow man, for we all have some redeeming factor to ourselves. Surely he would notice, and take action before the smell got worse.

The smell became worse. And it became clear the source was not rotten food or curdled milk. The horribleness clearly could only be connected to his body odor. On reflection, I can only say I saw him take a shower once or twice. The whole situation was mind boggling, and I ended up conferring with my other roommates. At this stage, the best plan was passive-aggressive behavior. A note here, a note there. We gave him the name of "Camel Spitting Ninja," and made snide remarks about his personal hygiene behind his back. And then the smell turned rancid. It felt oily and rotten, and seemed to coat his entire section. This was compounded by the fact he rarely did laundry. I was forced to leave the window open during the winter, and had to get an air freshener to make life livable.

The football player ended up directly confronting him, nothing changed. My bed was next to his, and when CSN rolled over in his sleep, a blast of pure evil would assault my nostrils. We escalated, contacting the Residential Life office. My other roommate were fairly crude, but I managed to craft a letter going into detail about my grievances against said roommate. We discovered our roommate eventually received a letter from the ResLife people, and he ignored it. We wrote more letters, and got no response. We were forced to endure CSN, with his wrappers of McDonald's littering his desk. We became rude, prayed for his demise in an unfortunate accident. It was a nightmare.

One day, we noticed he was gone. CSN had been known to keep an irregular schedule (I believe he worked the late shift at McDonald's), but his presence was missing for a day, then two, then four. We were perplexed. Maybe CSN had died a horrible painful death? He could possibly have gotten arrested and was now being raped in prison? We had no clue, but he was gone and we rejoiced. Two full weeks went by, and our joy was found to be short lived. He returned, and the cloud of human odor was with him.

I lived with him for the entire school year. I don't know how I did it, but I survived. And on the last day, I was the final person left in the dorm room. I cleaned the mess left by the other three, and when I got to CSN's corner I discovered something. His foul, rotten smell had seeped into the mattress and the very walls of the room. This individual had done what I previously thought was impossible, and imprinted himself upon the room. I was dumbfounded, but as I left that room forever I began to smile at the absurdity of it all. I didn't mention to ResLife about the mattress or smell, and for all I know some poor soul is inhabiting that corner, side by side with the remains of CSN.