Dear Poor Lucky Me,
I have one roommate. It’s just him and I in our apartment. I buy a lot of groceries. Some one besides me keeps eating the food. I work during the day. My roommate sits on a beanbag chair, gets high, and plays old school Nintendo (Usually Duck Hunt or Mario Brothers) all day.
When I come home and want to enjoy a relaxing bowl of Mac n Cheese, the cupboards are always empty.
When I ask my roommate “Where’s my food?” He replies “Gosh, I don’t know.” or “What food?”
Does he think I’m an idiot, does he not give a shit, or is some one else living in my apartment and neither he nor I know?
Signed,
Angry and Hungry
Dear Angry and Hungry,
I really feel for you. Your writing style indicates that you’ve spent a lot of time laying out the facts of your case.
Let’s not beat around the bush: obviously your roommate is eating your food, and it’s likely that he doesn’t give a shit what you think. There is segment of the population who assume that if they’re never confronted they never have to stop acting like dicks. It’s up to people like you and I to do some effective confronting. Or passive aggressive non-confronting. Here’s what I would do:
Buy a mini-fridge and a padlock for your door. When your roommate is out or asleep, bring your groceries into your room and install the padlock. If he asks about the absence of food or presence of a heavy lock, say you have no idea what happened and that you’re worried some one is secretly living in your apartment. Start referring to the third roommate as George, and blame things on him. Kick the Nintendo consul around, hide the TV remote, and start sitting in the beanbag whenever possible. This will officially be a declaration of war. You will have to start carrying your own toilet paper. Tell your roommate that you and George have plans often, and when you buy yourself anything new, say it was a gift from George. When you go into your bedroom have long conversations with George- be sure to laugh a lot.
After about a month, you can slowly start putting food back in the cupboards. If your roommate starts eating it again- he is a tougher nut to crack than I can help with. You’ll have to have a loud verbal confrontation and probably start looking for another place. Besides, he sounds like a tool, and as some one who can manage to buy themselves groceries- you are probably too old to have a roommate anyway.
Sincerely,
Poor Lucky Me
