megorious

I haven’t talked about my roommate Amy a lot because frankly, she is so insane that most people would think I just made her up. Amy is 29 and sober. She’s been in the program (Alcoholics Anonymous) for about a year and a half now. She goes to roughly ten meetings a week and leads her entire life by their rules. She can’t make a single decision without discussing it in a committee. Basically, the program has made her crazy by making her list every messed up thing that has ever happened to her throughout her life.

One thing I have learned about Amy after living with her for a year is that she firmly believes that everyone who is not in the program is a sick alcoholic. When I first moved in she was very forceful in trying to get me to go to meetings with her. I told her I didn’t have a problem and she replied with the textbook standard, “Denial is the first sign.” Well, you just can’t win in that case. When I first moved in here I was in a non-drinking mood. I actually went six months without having one drink. Amy told me this was one of the fist signs. I thought denial was the first sign? She told me then that the next time I would have a drink that I wouldn’t be able to stop. My life would spiral down into a haze unless I got help. I had one beer that night and didn’t have another for a month. Amy told me the first sign of alcoholism was not drinking. How many first signs are there? Even though we obviously don’t like each other, Amy and I usually get along. Probably because she’s never here and we hardly see each other.

There was one incident last fall though….

The week I adopted Linus there was a disturbance of epic proportion. You see, Linus had wandered into Amy’s room and Amy was not okay with this. She wrote me a stern note saying that Linus had to be kept in my room at all times. I replied to Amy’s note informing her that she was not my mother or landlord. Also in the note, I asked her not to write me notes ever again. The next morning, at 5:00 AM, Amy decided she wanted to have a talk with me. She came into my room and woke me up by repeatedly saying my name. I told her we could talk about this later since I had only gone to bed at 3:00 AM. Amy refused, turned on the light and persisted with the attempted conversation. I asked her several times to leave but she did not. She just stood there, looking nuts….

But you see I knew this was going to happen. About two months before this Amy did the same thing to Kate over a towel. A towel! It was 6:30 in the morning when Amy went pounding on Kate’s door like the police. Amy was distraught and screamed so loudly at Kate that it woke Rebecca and myself up. Kate and Amy yelled at each other, Amy cried (over a towel) and then things got awkward for a month.

The night before Amy came in my room Kate and I had discussed the very possibility. “You know she’s going to do it.” Kate said. I knew Kate was right. I knew Amy would barge right into my room at five in the morning and not think twice about it. I took precautions before going to sleep by filling up a giant cup of water. I told Kate that if Amy entered my room I would not hesitate to throw said water in her face.

I hesitated for a minute. I asked Amy several more times to leave my room but she didn’t budge. I calmly got out of bed, approached my dresser and seized the water. I asked Amy one more time to leave. I sipped. She refused. I doused. Amy was drenched, soaked, saturated, flooded, permeated, swamped, inundated…in a word, wet. She was taken aback by my action. I lunged forwarded to shut my door but she flailed her skinny arms back into the room. I immediately ceased shoving the door closed so that her arm wouldn’t snap like a twig.

At this point I was furious. My blood boiled like never before. I didn’t know I had such a temper suppressed inside me. I exploded. I was screaming so loud at her that Kate and Rebecca came running immediately. When they got to my room, Amy was dripping wet, her lazy eye twitching like a brine shrimp. I must have screamed, “GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY ROOM!” a dozen times. Amy didn’t leave. She remained freakishly calm and sat down on my bed. Rebecca and Kate tried to talk her out and eventually they were yelling. I just stood quietly in my boxers, my face maraschino, glaring at Amy. My entire body shook with anger. She brought out the worst in me and yet still wouldn’t leave. Rebecca tried to physically remove her but Amy did some sort of ti-kwon-do gesture to repeal her. Amy remained calm the entire time and kept repeating that she thought we should have a family meeting. At five in the morning! The whole time I did manage to maintain my sense of humor. When I finally spoke I told Amy that i had worked late the night before. At the time Amy was unemployed. I yelled, “Amy, I haven’t even been sleeping for two hours. I just got off of work at one in the morning. When did you get off of work? March?”

After 30 minutes of this debacle, Rebecca called the police. Yes, the police. The police came and made Amy finally leave my room. The surreal ordeal was over. Sauron called to apologize to everyone after her sponsor told her she was completely out of line. She said she was going to move out but she never did. She stayed.

[NOTE: It wasn't my choice to live with three women. Rebecca moved in because this guy, Yanick, had moved out...because of Amy. In the last two years Amy has had 12 roommates more out because of her.]

Back in February Kate and Rebecca moved out. The process to find replacements was an excruciating extravaganza that lasted two months because of Amy. Her ideal roommate is someone over 26 who doesn’t drink and who isn’t a student. In Boston that is probably less than 1% of the population. It was an arduous process but we eventually settled on two awesome roommates, Kathryn and Drew. The last three months have been fantastic….but alas all good things must come to an end. Kathryn got a great job offer in NYC and so the roommate hunt is on again.

This Boston entry was posted Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 6:30 am.
Tags: amy, Boston, Brookline, roommates, The Eye