Ladies and gentleman: Fritz has left the building.
Our beloved bookworm of a roommate has found his egress, trading Brooklyn for Chicago (or some associated suburb of that city).
As a parting gift, he handed me an unused ashtray purchased on his recent trip to graceland. It is white with a gold rim and a bold "TCB" lightning bolt painted on the bottom.
It's good that I don't smoke anymore. I wouldn't want to stain an heirloom like this with careless hot ash.
He offered me a hug before he left, and I gladly accepted it. It was an action that fits my character to a tee. Physically insincere, yet emotionally invested. That's me apparently.
So, he's gone.
Those in the know can always be reminded of him when we catch a glimpse of the converse all-star shoe print in the dust on our television screen. Someday I aspire to throw my own shoe at our television in a fit of disgust at some random jerk-off's political musings.
Just between you and me, he was my favorite roommate. Few people have such a voluminous catalog of "Simpson�s" knowledge at their fingertips, and that alone was enough for him to win my favor. He was not exactly clean or proactive, but he was always pleasant and never moody.
I feel that the tide in our house has firmly shifted towards moody.
Grumps live here and bitch and complain about things. Grumps don't like the sound of cell phones, so they invade private spaces to shut them off. Other grumps don't like their spaces invaded so they complain about the late-night use of secondary bathrooms.
Grumps are messy. They come home and make things messy because their rooms are already messy. Grumps drop shit on a random table and complain later that they can't ever find anything. Grumps make dishes pile and then complain that no one does the dishes.
So today, I shall take arms against the twin forces of clutter and grime that have laid siege to our house. I will battle the evil papers, baseball cleats, random blankets and extraneous accessories that have colonized our living room. Tidy, tidy, tidy.
I will do it because I know no one else will, and we must at least make some sort of first impression on our new roommate.
I hope that she is not grumpy like the others. I hope that she has a sense of humor. I hope the other grumps don't drive her to hide in her room and force her talk about how evil all the other roommates are, we already have that grumpy war going on here.
Caroline, you don't know what's in store for you...
