ometimes my roommate makes me want to cry. I just can’t. Even. Express. College can be tough, and in a particularly challenging week it’s more important than ever to sleep right and avoid distractions. So hearing this isn’t ideal:
‘Hey Siri, what time is it?’
‘The time is 7:30. Good morning.’
No, Siri, it is not. When I don’t have class until 10:30 and only got to sleep 5 hours ago, I dispute Siri on the goodness of the morning. Frankly on 5 hours of sleep I’d dispute anything with anyone. Once I begin to drift back off to sleep I am restored to turbulent consciousness as Jarvis thunderously descends the bunk bed, taking extra care to slam the door on his way to relieving himself. Good morning.
Then evening comes. It’s been a long day, let me tell you: problem sets due, reading due, bill payments due, but at last I can curl up in the fetal position in my bed and let fatigue drag me back into sleep. The door opens with a crash and Jarvis issues a powerful yawn, announcing his return. It is 2:30am in the bloody morning. I want to summon the strength to tell him just what I’m thinking at this point (which is predominantly just slurred screaming) but my tiredness prevents me from opening my eyes.
Sometimes in life, the cards just aren’t stacked in your favor. You can pick a great class schedule with ample time to sleep in, only to have it ruined by Jarvis. Jarvis is for the most part an amiable human with whom we share interests. We may even be friends with Jarvis. But sometimes Jarvis does things that tick us off. Things that cause the tension to increase ever so slightly, urging its way to breaking point.
‘Hey, Jarvis?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Is it possible for, like, you, to not, like, have to like converse with Siri at 7:30 every morning?’
‘Oh yeah, sure thing man.’
Excuse me? 4 weeks of hell and all was resolved after one simple yet grammatically condemnable conversation? Jarvis was not, as I had believed, hell-bent on making my life difficult with his master plan to cast me out of college. He just didn’t realize that what he was doing was disruptive.
The Resolution?
Jarvis and I are in reality the best of friends. We both have idiosyncrasies that we haven’t had to deal with before, which of course leads to some conversations about behavior in the living space. But the point is we do discuss them. Passive aggression is most certainly not the way forward. Most of the time, roommate affairs can be resolved so easily. People are just too damn polite to bring up their discontent in case it permanently creates an atmosphere of tension. Trust me, it does not. It creates a permanent atmosphere of me sleeping until 9:30am and loving life.
