Dormology Chapter 3: Crazy Roommates

[Series Table of Contents: The Fool's Guide to Dormology]

True Life: Crazy Roommates

By: David, Intern to the Stars

There are many kinds of roommates. There are the nice, sweet, caring, quiet, pleasant-smelling roommates who make your life easy but are likely to be forgotten immediately after graduation. There are also the loonies–or at the very least those with their loony moments. The loonies we remember. In this chapter, we’ll look at a few types of “crazy roommates.”

(Note: A number of Foolish folks contributed stories to this chapter. Though I will tell the stories in first person, this does not mean that I actually roomed with these people. It’s simply a narrative device. If you have ever roomed with me, this isn’t about you. Even if it exactly describes you.)

1. Roommates who kick walls in.

(cc) Flickr user singingbeagle

I had a great roommate my sophomore year. Sure, this dude–let’s call him Jack Danger–was a bit of a kook, but his shenanigans were always entertaining. One day, Jacky-boy decided he was going to break the world record for consecutive somersaults down the dorm hallway. (Indeed, an impressive aspiration.) We were all pretty stoked because, I mean, who doesn’t want to know the guy who holds the record for the most somersaults down the hall? So Jack Danger started rolling.

Things were looking really good until the 16th flip, when suddenly Jack came to a crashing halt. He looked up to find his feet firmly implanted in the wall of our floor’s R.A. After yanking his feet out of the wall, Mr. Danger paced around for a little while, trying to figure out what to do. Eventually, he accepted responsibility and left the following note on our R.A’s door:

“Dear R.A.,
I broke two things today:
1. The record for somersaults executed consecutively down the 3rd floor hallway.
and
2. Your wall.
Sorry,
Jack Danger”

It was really inspiring to see Jack break a record.

I knew another kid my freshman year who also tried to attempt an impressive hallway feat. The hallway was fairly narrow, and so this guy–let’s call him Chris Death–wanted to see if he could jump from one wall to the other and back while running down the hall (you know, Mario and Luigi type stuff). So Mr. Death takes off running down the hall. He makes a flying leap towards the first wall, extends his foot, and watches it plow through the sheet-rock. It was really cool. It wasn’t quite the Mario stunt he was going for, but ended up being a pretty rad ninja-kick-thing. After lifting himself off the ground, Chris moved one of the posters in the hall to cover up the hole. The R.A. didn’t find out for a week.

2. Roommates who want that Dave Matthews CD just a little too badly.

Some roommates will do anything for a Dave Matthews CD. Like, for instance, Jerry. Here’s Jerry’s story:

“My suitemates had a sweet computer that would burn CDs (this was the late 90’s when that was still an amazing concept) and was FULL of music they downloaded from the internet. I wanted to burn a Dave Matthews album to listen to on my way to the upcoming Dave and Tim Reynolds concert in Kentucky.

Well, Suitemate A had moral qualms about burning Dave Matthews music, even though he would rip, download, burn, and generally steal anything else. He felt that he and Dave has a special connection. He never let me burn the disc.

One weekend, Suitemates A & B go out of town on a debate trip and lock the door that joins their room to our shared bathroom. My roommate and I never locked our bathroom door, so we were a little offended by the gesture. We were also bored and so … of course … decided to break into their room and burn that coveted CD. We had to get the door off the hinges, which required borrowing some tools from our RA, who seemed to think the whole thing was pretty funny.

It’s Saturday night and we finally get the door off. I’m feeling smug because the debate trip lasts until Sunday night and here I am, burning the CD on their precious computer, about to re-hang the door and they’ll never know I was in there.

I’m watching the burn progress bar with their door leaning up against Suitemate A’s bed, when the door opens and I hear Suitemate B scream, “[DELETED]!?!” as I go bolting out of the room like an idiot. My roommate and I are laughing and trying to apologize at the same time. The RA is nowhere to be found.

(cc) Flickr user How can I recycle this

Our suitemates didn’t speak to us for days.

I know it was insane to come home to find your room in shambles with the door off the hinges, but we eventually made up and I still keep in touch with Suitemate B. I never found out why they came home a day early.”

3. Roommates who are desperate for phone numbers.

I had a summer roommate who had to finish one short class before heading home to Wisconsin, where he would begin school there the next semester. On the last day of his mini-term, I returned to the apartment to find he had moved out. So far so good. A few nights later, I wanted a pizza delivered. I went for the phone book by the phone, but it was gone. I went for the phone book that I kept on my desk. Gone. I remembered we had a phone book in the junk drawer. Also gone. He took all three of my local phone books with him when he went home, 900 miles away.

Sounds like he was just playing a prank, right? But if I know him like I think I do, there’s a good chance he thought he would need all three phone books in Wisconsin.

4. Roommates who create awkward situations with tour groups.

(cc) Flickr user Mike "Dakinewavamon" Kline

One day, as I was staring intently at my computer screen, probably watching YouTube or something, I heard a knock at the door: “Hey, I’ve got a tour group, do you mind if we check out your room?” This would happen on occasion. Tour groups would show up in our dorm building, and if anybody was in the rooms, the tour guide would ask if it would be okay to have a look.

I didn’t mind, so I opened the door and the tour group began to file in. Suddenly, in unison, the group gasped and with extreme disgust began to turn away from something in the back of the room. (You should understand, I had an L shaped room, and from the place I was, I couldn’t see what was back in the corner.) I leaned over to discover my roommate, Stan, sitting atop his bed in the nude. He just sat there, smiling and naked, watching the tour group run from the room.

5. Famous Roommates

• Speaking of crazy roommates, did you know that Adam Sandler and Judd Apatow shared an apartment in LA for a while? (They spent the majority of their time making prank phone calls together. Some of the footage appears in the opening minutes of Funny People.)
• Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones lived together at Harvard. I can’t imagine the insanity that must have ensued.
• Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman shared a Manhattan apartment in the ‘60s. At one point Robert Duvall lived with them as well.
• Marilyn Monroe and Shelley Winters shared a bedroom as acting students at the Hollywood Studio Club.

What kind of roommate do you have?

If they’re the crazy kind, stay tuned for some pranks you can pull on them.