Thursday, August 19, 2010

Cake Breath and Vomit Guy

I guess I should give a little back story on the heavy day that was Tuesday and led to my last post. Here's the dirt. One of my roommates enjoys drinking himself into a zombified stupor on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and any day leading up to a public holiday. He sits in the living room chain smoking and drinking beer. The rest of us just generally stay out of his way. . .looking into his glazed eyes is pretty spooky. . .

So, Monday night this guys decides to go on a binge (eventhough he's past the age when this kind of behaviour goes from immature to pathetic. . .way past). At about 2am Tuesday morning I, on the third floor, am roused from a semi-peaceful slumber by the sounds of vomiting in the second floor bathroom. . .gross and sad.

Tuesday morning I am the first to rise and find that our beer loving roommate did not even have the wherewithal to clean up after himself. . .chunks are all over the bathroom floor. Welcome to Tuesday. I suppose I could have bitten the bullet and hosed down the bathroom myself. . .but I just didn't feel like it. I already buy the toilet paper and the kitchen sponges and no one mentions it or says thanks. Though I know I should do it thankful or thanklessly. . .somedays. . .well. . .it's just not happening.

I closed the bathroom door with a bitter grimace and went downstairs to the first floor bathroom. On the way back up to my room I grabbed the 9 rolls of toilet paper I had donated to the house and put them in my closet. Done.

That was the morning.

Then the afternoon came. On a high note, roommate Aisha was a big enough woman to take care of the vomit covered bathroom. . .hosing it down so not a trace remained. I thanked her profusely for being such a grown up person about it all. None of us said a word to Vomit Man though. . .what do you say to a grown man who can't get it together to clean up his own vomit in a communal living situation? That was a job for his mama back in Ireland. . .and clearly. . .she didn't drive the message home.

So. . .afternoon continued and I went out to the mall to buy DVD's and popcorn with bosses and new teacher. It was all fine. I bought some cake to share with the new teacher. Just trying my best to be congenial. The unsettling part of the afternoon came when it was time to eat.

I split the cake between the new teacher and myself since no one else wanted any. The new teacher and I chomped on the cake both deciding that it really wasn't like chocolate cake at all. I smelled my cake and declared "this doesn't even smell like chocolate cake." It was at that moment that the Hepatitis infected person to my right ( not the new teacher. . .he was to my left) asked to sniff my cake.

In my head I'm thinking "Are you out of your mind you control freaking socially inept megalomaniac! You don't even want any cake to begin with, you have a contagious disease, and you want to SNIFF MY CAKE? Are you an IDIOT! Not in this lifetime my friend."

But of course we must be polite. . .even in the face of contagious diseases. . .so working against every grain in my body I moved my cake to the right for the idiot to sniff. I of course am the real idiot in this situation. I don't even remember what he said. . .something in agreement, as I, with stifled bitterness, put the sniffed cake into my mouth and ate it. . .so as not to offend.

And who. . .tell me who. . .sniffs another person's cake???!!!. . .even when they don't have hepatitis?

Hopefully my addiction to being polite hasn't caught me a contagious disease.

That was afternoon.

Then the evening brought Last Chance Harvey and if you read Tuesday August 17th's post. . .you know how the day ended. . .in tears. It was all just a bit much.

Thus passed another public holiday in Indonesia. And I've come to the conclusion that it is counter productive to be polite to socially inept people. Better to say no or else you'll be invaded by their social ineptness (so many liberties taken!!!! argh!) and before you know it you too will wind up with a sniffed cake. And nobody needs that. . .trust me.

1 comment:

shelley lou said...

I LOVE THE STORY and do kind, generous, friendly cake purchasers need to stoop to the NOT PC cake sniffing actions of contagious, infected co-workers? This is what coups are made of.......I hear rumors of a cake sniffing rebellion. DO we need Martha Stewart on this one???? Cake sniffing Etiquette 101......