Roommate stories, roommate stories, I’m gonna bust out some roommate stories!
Indeed, today is the day I will tell the story of Peter, the Awful Korean.
My sophomore year was one of craziness and shame. My roommate fall semester, Hippie Jesus*, is another story. He was replaced spring semester by Peter.
I found out a bit about Peter the day I came back from winter break. He had moved in, and sort of shoved a bunch of my stuff around in the process. It’s been years, so I remember the weird feeling of, “Oh, thanks for moving my stuff” more than what that stuff actually was. I tried to be pretty chatty, asking him all kinds of stuff about who he was, what he liked, what he was studying, etc. He didn’t respond, as he was playing Starcraft.
He was an only child, from New Jersey, studying business. He had been suspended previously for unspecified reasons, and was just now returning from a year’s absence.
In an effort to build bridges, I showed him my blue scrunchie.
I had picked it up a year previous, having stolen the idea from the short-lived TV show Undeclared. In it, a roommate explains to his new roommate about how girls might come over, and if they do, the blue scrunchie would be waiting on a hook on the wall, to be put onto the door in case of company, thus subtly alerting the other roommate that they had been sexiled.
And so, in an effort to bond with this gruff, Starcraft playing new roomie, I showed him my own blue scrunchie, and explained the deal.
Little did I know how much Undeclared would imitate Art.
The next night, the night before classes started, I went to bed early, around ten, with the intention of getting up at six AM, going to Starbucks, having a nice long breakfast, and arriving at my first class refreshed, awake, and ready to learn. This was a well-honed ritual: I had done the same thing since sixth grade.
I fell asleep quickly, as Peter was not in the room, having gone “clubbing” some hours earlier. Little did I know.
Four hours later, half way through my hypothetical sleep, I was roughly shaken awake.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said.
“Where’s the blue scrunchie?”
“What?”
“Where is it, I need to put it on the door.”
“What?”
“Get out, man. There’s a girl. I brought back a girl.”
“Fuck man, no. It’s…” I looked at the clock. “It’s fucking TWO AM. I have CLASS. I need SLEEP.”
“Dude, you told me about that scrunchie. I’m putting it on the door. You gotta get out.”
I don’t know how it happened, but soon enough, I was pushed out of the door in my boxers and a sweater, a copy of Dune tossed after me as I passed a young moon faced chinese girl, like two ships in some retarded night.
I was sexiled. I looked at the doorknob, at my scrunchie, and remembered that the same thing had happened in Undeclared–the roommate who had actually needed an explanation about sexile was the first to abuse its azure privileges.
Even then, I knew it. I knew that this scrunchie was the first step down a long, terrible road.
You know how one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch? Well, Peter spoiled Koreans for me. Kim Jong Il could nuke Seoul twice, and I’d be totally OK with it, thanks to Peter.
Thanks, Peter.
*Editor’s Note: The person described as “Hippie Jesus” is none other than Clunkline’s own Sgt. Earth, but since “Hippie Jesus” sums it up so succinctly, it was deemed unnecessary to change the reference in-line.
Another popular description of Sgt. Earth is “the world’s happiest homeless man”. In the best possible way.
-Tanzmetall
