Summer 2002, Chapter 8

Chapter 8 - No more cat, no more messy house...

Wow, the last few days have been something else. On Thursday,
my 2 remaining room mates decided to party it up, it being their last
night in London and all, before moving back to Newmarket. So, they
had a few friends come over for a few beers before going out.

Friday morning, I got up, and, as is my normal routine, pulled a couple
of pieces of fruit out of the fridge, put in my contacts and went downstairs
to have a shower and shave. When I came back up, I grabbed my morning
glass of grapefruit juice, popped some vitamins, put on water for tea and
went to grab my box of corn flakes so I could have some breakfast. This
has all become so routine that I do it in a zombie-like state, without
completely noticing what's going on. And so, it was a couple of minutes
before I realised that my hand, passing through the space where the corn
flakes normally stood, was simply passing through air.

One thought blazed through my brain "They threw out my corn flakes! I
just bought those on Saturday, it was almost a completely full box! THEY
THREW OUT MY CORN FLAKES!"

Of course, being the person that I am, I simply coped, got a couple of
slices of bread out of the freezer, popped them in the toaster oven, and
decided to have some toast with my bananas and peach.

Then I heard sounds of something resembling life coming from Amanda's
room. It sounded like she was awake, and talking to someone. I decided
that it was time to confront her on this.

After knocking on her door a few times, and finally succeeding in getting
a response, I popped my head in and asked her if she knew what had
happened to my corn flakes. A look of dawning awareness that she had
done something wrong slowly crept across her face as she informed me
that she had thought it was Joanna's, and had given it away. She promised
to replace it for me though.

Well, I finished up my breakfast, watched some Newsworld Morning, and
then went off to another fun-filled, action-packed day at work. When I arrived
home, I discovered that our porch was completely full of their stuff, piled to
the very top of their reach, some of these piles had spilled onto the lawn, the
front door was propped wide open, there was only a narrow strip of free space
not occupied by bags of Stuff(TM) in the front hallway, and, in general, it looked
quite disorganised. What was most shocking though was that this was not all
of their stuff. In fact, it wasn't even close. You see, I then found out that they had
already taken a full vanload to be put into a storage unit, and they still had more
stuff in their rooms! Well, they eventually got around to completely loading the
van to capacity once more, then loaded Amanda's station wagon to capacity as
well.

About midway through this second loading, Monet, Amy's cat, who had been
shut up in the bathroom, began making appearances, trying to sneak out through
the wide-open door, and so, Amy put him in his harness, on a long blue leash,
tied to a wardrobe drawer in the front hallway. Eventually, a broken-backed office
chair made an appearance in the kitchen, and Monet decided it would be a wonderful
perch.

During one of their frequent rest breaks, I mentioned to Amy and Amanda that
they still had dishes in the sink that needed to be done, and asked if they would
please get around to doing them. Well, Amy said that she would do them, and
proceeded to go through their dirty dishes, comprised of other peoples'
Tupperware and cutlery, and throw out all the dishware. When she got to
my strainer (which she had used just the previous night), I told her not to
throw that out, as it was mine. She didn't actually clean anything during the
whole time, and there is now a collection of dirty cutlery on the windowsill,
because I'm not throwing out someone else's cutlery, and I refuse to clean
up after those two slobs any more. After all, those dishes had been sitting
in the sink, waiting to be done for a week and a half.

Next, they decided to get the aquarium ready to be moved. Unlike normal
people, who make sure they have a clear plastic bag to put the fish into,
they had nothing, and decided to move the fish, in the aquarium, with the
water still in it. Doug, Amy's boyfriend, and moving slave, decided it would
be good to at least remove some of the water from the tank first, and so, they
drained it to about 1/4 full, using a few buckets that were lying around. While
they were doing this, Amy decided to dump the filter water into the aquarium.
Now, as those of us who have ever had fish know, filter water is some of the
most disgusting stuff to be found in a home, coming close to rivalling the
condition of Amy and Amanda's dishes for the past 2 weeks. Well, Amy
shrieked about how dirty it was, and it was about this point that I decided
it would be much better for me just to do my dishes, including the strainer
I was sure Amy would never clean, and just try to ignore their insanity.

Well, while I was finishing up my dishes, I guess they finally finished with
the fish tank and got it loaded, thus completing their Loading of the Van With
Crap. About two minutes later, I heard Amy scream, and then, I heard words:

"Oh my god! Look at my cat! He's hung himself!"

Looking back at where Monet had been, I noticed that the blue leash was
now a straight-line from the wardrobe doors, into the living room, where the
front window was wide open. Now, for those who don't know cats, they have
this habit of trying to escape houses, preferably by jumping out open windows.
Monet was no exception, except in that he had the misfortune to be in his
harness, which was on a leash, tied to the doors of a wardrobe. The leash
was just long enough to give him one foot of jumping distance out the front
window before he was reeled in, and then dangled out the window.

Well, as the quote above leads one to believe, Amy freaked out. Amy is
really emotionally attached to Monet, and the slightest potential danger
to his fuzzy little ass puts her in a horrid, worried state. I was actually
shocked to find out that she had the cognitive functioning to go over,
unclip Monet from the leash and bring him to safety. I expected that she
would be paralysed with fear.

Doug and I, of course, found this all highly amusing. Monet wasn't hurt
in the slightest - cat harnesses are designed so that there's no chance
of a cat being strangled, and it was a funny sight to see Monet just
dangling below the window, giving his pathetic little meows of displeasure.
Plus which, it's not my cat, and it was his own stupidity that landed him
in that mess.

Well, a bit after 11:00pm, they finally got everything loaded, and were
ready to go. So, I went to do a quick walk through to make sure they
hadn't forgotten something that was broken or left too much crap for me
to clean up (that's the story of Saturday...), and I found a portable CD
Player boom-box in Amanda's room, and so, being the nice guy that I
am, I ran out to make sure she didn't leave without it.

Amazing how nice I am to people who get my dishes dirty and don't clean
them, and give away my food. Well, if I'd have known what all else they
had left for me, I probably wouldn't have been so nice.

After they left, I decided it was time to start cleaning, because they'd been
wearing their shoes in the house, and also hadn't bothered to clean anything.
Well, that night, I went through the front hall, the living room and the kitchen
with the vacuum, and then went and mopped the living room and kitchen.
When I poured it out, the water was black, and so were the soles of my feet.

Tired and beaten, I retired to my bedroom. Saturday was another day, and
would see me tackling the true challenge - the basement, where Amy and
Amanda's bedrooms were.

Saturday, 0800h

After a good night's sleep, I got up, had some breakfast (toast - Amanda
never did get me any more corn flakes to replace the ones she'd given
away), and decided to knuckle down and get some more cleaning done.
The first order of business was to get the garbage out of the house.

First, I grabbed the three bags of garbage they'd created in the past
couple of days, and dumped those outside. Then, I grabbed a fresh
garbage bag, and went on a hunt. It took about 15 minutes for the bag
to be completely filled, as I threw out old leftovers and rotting food
they had left in the fridge, taken all of their almost finished shampoo
bottles out of the shower, and gathered up all the other complete crap
they had just left lying around everywhere.

And then, I looked at the piles of stuff in the laundry room.

I found 3 more garbage bags, completely full, and a laundry hamper
that they had found on the curb a month previously. Needless to say,
the laundry hamper was also overflowing with garbage. Well, I took out
all of the bags of garbage, but, not being willing to deal with the laundry
hamper, I simply stuffed it in Amanda's room. In the laundry room, I also
found a little plastic Shop Vac, which they had said wasn't working.

Being me, I decided to try to revive this Shop Vac, besides, it had to be
better than the vacuum I was using on Friday night. So, I hauled it apart,
and found that the high-speed fan had broken off its mounting bolt. Nothing
a little bit of pounding back into shape and Krazy Glue wouldn't fix. So,
within a half an hour of tinkering (during which I put a load through the
washer), I had a fully functional Shop Vac with which to attack the
basement floors.

So, with the Shop Vac going for close to an hour straight, I tackled the
floors in the basement, completely filling the bag, and then filling the
main chamber of the Shop Vac about halfway again, as I worked my
way through Amy and Amanda's rooms, clearing out the dust and dirt
that accumulates when people don't vacuum their carpeted floors for a
full year. Then, for good measure, I went up the stairs with the vacuum,
and then redid the kitchen, living room and front hallway. Well, after that,
there was nothing to do but mop, so, I filled the bucket and mopped the
laundry room and bathroom floors, and then ran upstairs and redid the
kitchen and living room floors. This time, the water was only a very dark brown.

After a day of cleaning up after those two and making the house return to
a liveable state of cleanliness, I had a quick dinner, and headed out to the
Runt Club for a few beers and conversation with friends.

It's not that Amy and Amanda were bad people, but they were lazy slobs
who had likely not had to deal with cleaning up after themselves or taking
responsibility for their actions to that extent before. I have learned from
them though; I have learned never to live with that sort of person again,
and that there are some people who you will constantly have to hound to
get them to do actual work. Oh, and I've also learned why people are
somewhat anxious about renting to students, as there are entirely too
many students who have the same laziness and lack of responsibility
complex.

Ah well, on the bright side, they left a bunch of bottles of raver alcohol
drinks in the fridge, so, if I feel like getting drunk and wired at the same
time some night, I'm all set. But, most importantly, they're out of the
house, and won't be dirtying it up on me! And I don't have to worry about
keeping all the windows almost completely shut so the cat doesn't get out!


Previous Chapter: Summer 2002, Chapter 7 - "You Work Here..."



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