Surprise in the Cupboard

I have 2 housemates. Actually, this one guy is renting a room from me, and the other is someone I had just recently met. He helped me with a dog adoption day, I helped him get a part-time job, and then he called me up one Friday night. He had moved here from up north and was staying with his mother and mother's husband, but they had some kind of falling out, and this man needed a place to stay. (It turns out that he has a history of problems with hard liquor, and his mother's husband found some beer cans, and they blew up. Apparently, the agreement was that he was not to drink while he stayed with them.)

The one who I allowed to stay with me for a bit definitely has alcohol problems, but he is actually working (albeit just a couple of days a week) and he cleans up after himself, at least in the common areas.

The other one. Oy, vey. Sometimes I'm amazed that he knows how to wipe his own ass. My dad had a saying that someone "didn't have the sense God gave little green apples". Well, take 1/4 the sense God gave little green apples, and divide it by 5, and you might get as much sense was what my roommate Mike has. My friend Jerry has a saying. He rarely asks someone this to their face, unless it's in jest, but when someone does something which shows a distinct removal from common sense or intelligence, he'll say, "Did your parents have any children that lived?" You know, it's harsh, but hey, sometimes it fits.

Mike's been living in San Antonio 5 months and hasn't yet found a job. Of course, in order for most people to find jobs, they have to actually get out of bed and go look for one. I've known people who applied for jobs sitting in front of their computer in their underwear, but I've never known an employer to go bang on your door, offering you a job if only you'll get out of bed. Mike's dad is paying his rent, and Mike feels no real compunction to end the gravy train and support himself. So he goes downtown to "apply for jobs", aka hang out with other losers. After 2 months of me offering him a ride to Texas Workforce Commission (he thinks he's too good to ride the bus), he finally agreed to go. I tried to tell him some things on the ride---I had to pull the earphones away from his head, where they were blaring noise loud enough to be annoying to me, even though they were in his ears. When he got out of the car, instead of heading into the building, he sat on the curb and started playing with his phone or mp3 player. I went and got some kolaches, something to drink, etc. I was gone at least 10 minutes----long enough for him to have smoked a cigarette prior to going inside. I drove back by the Workforce Commission office, to find Mike maybe 50 yards from the door, walking away from the door, talking with a man who didn't look like he had anything to offer in terms of a job. The person who was with me opined that Mike was looking to score some drugs. My POV is that while I do not know the other man, and I could not hear what they were saying, and thus cannot state with certainty what Mike was or was not doing, that the assumption that he was trying to buy drugs was certainly consistent with the facts, and in any case, Mike was not putting forth any effort towards even registering to find a job, much less finding one.

I've come home at least 4 times in the past 5 days to find the refrigerator open. The door has lost some of its "magnetism". It holds once it's closed, but you need to make sure it closes, and if there's food sticking out at the bottom it keeps the door from closing (it was built for drawers, but those drawers disappeared before I bought the house, so we just put stuff on the bottom). So this is no big deal, and honestly, if I found the door open every once in a while, I wouldn't spaz about it. But it's half the times I go to that refrigerator, I find it open. Moreover, Mike passes by the frig every time he goes to the bathroom, so he sees it more often than I do.

Anyway, this past weekend the water was shut off because I had a broken pipe under the house and it took us a while to fix it. I filled containers with water, and we eventually filled the bathtub with water so that, even though we couldn't shower, we still had water to flush the toilet, etc. Of course, during this time, I washed dishes. Humans have lived for 99% of our existence without running water, and in most times and locations, had to actually haul water some distances from wells and rivers. Hey, all I had to do to get water was to go turn on the water at the meter, fill some jugs, and turn off the water. I've gone backpacking in the desert and the desert mountains. When you have to haul all the water you have up a mountain, and water weighs 8 pounds per gallon, you conserve the water you have (humans require at least a gallon of water per day; more in extreme heat.) So I know how to wash with minimal water.

We got the water back on, so now there's no excuse, right? Tuesday morning, sink overflowing with dishes. Wednesday morning, sink overflowing with dishes. Came home Wednesday night, found the refrigerator door open. I asked Mike about it, if he knew the door was open. He said he hadn't opened it. So I just started pulling out the food that was keeping the door from closing, and left it on the floor. Not my job to constantly rearrange someone else's laziness. Mike eventually got up and did something with the food. I told him he needed to wash dishes. He grunted. I told him several times he needed to wash dishes. No response.

The dishes were bugging me. Ideally, I like to go to bed with an empty, clean sink, but I'll settle for a few dishes and glasses. But a sink overflowing with dirty dishes for 2 or 3 days----no. Not acceptable. Also, the stove was coated with grease. Mike fries everything, and he uses 2 or 3 times the amount of grease he needs to use. I've given him a splatter cover, but I don't think he uses it. I've told him to clean up after himself, but every time I use the stove, it's covered in grease, and he got grease into the pot of tea I had made.

It was late, and I had to be up early the next day, but screw it. I washed the dishes, then took all the plates, bowls, coffee cups, pots, pans, and skillets, and sequestered them away where he effectively can't get them. I'm applying the "if you can't take care of your toys, you don't get to play with them" principle. I've talked to Mike numerous times over the past 2 months about washing dishes and cleaning up after himself. This is a guy who took a bag of trash and left it on the front porch, where of course the dogs got into it and scattered it. He was too lazy to walk it the 15 or 20 yards to the trash can. So I told him to clean the mess up. He picked up a few things. I told him once again to clean it up. He still did a half-ass job. I'm tired of telling him to wash his dishes and wipe of the stove. He's obviously not listening. So he doesn't get to use the pots and pans and dishes. (I did leave drinking glasses.)

Folks, we're not talking about an 18 year old fresh out of Mommy and Daddy's house. We're talking about a 32, 33 year old "man". Or 6 foot tall boy, 'cause that's all Mike is. Fucking clueless, he is. People don't understand what I mean by that until they meet him.

I've decided I need to be a little less passive-aggressive with Mike and confront him, sit down and have a talk. The problem is, he's always asleep or in his room with the door closed. I rarely see him. He was on a benzodiazipine; I told his dad (who takes him to the doctor and buys his medication) to get him off of that. But his dad told me that Mike needed something so he can sleep. I told him I didn't think you needed to help someone who sleeps 12 to 20 hours per day, get more sleep, that 12 hours is more than sufficient for any adult. Mike was sleeping 12 to 20 hours per day, and even then, not doing anything when he was up. He wanted me to let him use my car to drive a block and a half (a SHORT block and a half) for fast food. He does not need a drug that will knock him out or even "calm him down". The object is to make him less comatose than he already is. Now that he's off the benzos, he's doing better, but he still sleeps until 11 am or noon (or occasionally 4 or 5 pm), gets up, is drinking coffee into then night, and never engages in any kind of physical activity, just lies in bed all day. Yet he tells his dad he can't sleep. Hell, the problem is, he never wakes up! Or he never really gets his body going and doing anything, and he uses stimulants (caffeine) until the wee hours. This is not rocket science. I told his dad, who's complaining that he can't afford whatever drugs Mike has been prescribed, that the problem is not medical (there may be some mental health issues, but they can't be discerned because of the behavioral issues.) Mike should not be given drugs until he gets on a routine of getting up by 7 or 8, getting out of the house, looking for work for at least 6 hours, getting some form of exercise (even just walking), not using caffeine past 2 pm, eating decent meals (he eats crap), and preparing for bed at a decent hour.

If his dad wasn't paying his rent, he would have been out long ago.

But I need to quit sniping by leaving the food on the floor and removing the dishes from the kitchen. I need to sit down and talk to him. On the other hand, words have fallen on deaf ears, and he needs to be taught that actions have consequences, and inaction has consequences.

I wish I could say that Mike is a total anomaly. Unfortunately, he's not. He's somewhat extreme because he has someone else supporting him, but in my experience, there are very few adult men in the world. There are, however, a lot of 6 foot, 200 pound irresponsible boys that need to be sent to their rooms (or maybe sent to mow the lawn, or something) because they're so fucking irresponsible and clueless. They leave all the chores to others, and don't pull their own weight in the world. I've been accused of hating men. I don't. I rather like men. It's just that there are so few of them, and so many irresponsible jerks.