Things I hate about my flatmate - FW

FW has butter fingers and a very serious lack of common sense. As a result I have to put up with endless cleaning chores and stupid unorganised situations at home.

He spills something off every plate of food or drink he has, almost religiously, I swear the guy must think spilling is some sort of rite of passage for eating and drinking. He has no conscience about it either and I can guarantee, that if he does actually attempt to clean it up (in itself a miracle), it’s never done properly.

I have gotten used to walking into the lounge and finding spilt red wine on the carpets, all over the computer (leaving me the overly-intricate job of having to remove even the little round ball inside the mouse to get it working properly again, not to mention the printer), the walls and table top. All left, without a trace of an attempt to clean them. And he carries on the day as if nothing happened, or worse shoots back a reply of: ‘It’s only wine!’ Everything is always preceded by, ‘It’s only...’

He empties his left over coffee cups into the sink every morning with such force that the remnants splash all over the drying dishes to the side of the sink and all over the sink top. I have seen him doing it. It’s as if, he has to summon up the energy in advance to produce the otherwise unnatural force that is required to create the messy spill. He hesitates, he flicks. Victory! The cup goes into the sink. Anything neat and considerate would be a failure.

He has spilt pots of oily residue, oven grease, milk and running food on the floor and wipes them up with a dish cloth. So I, have had the distinct pleasure of walking into the kitchen and slipping right on my ass, and then later on discovering, that while using a dish cloth to dry the dishes, my dishes are being streaked with gravy - which has, more than likely, been mopped off the floor by said dish cloth. FW uses dish cloths to mop up anything in sight, I’m sure he would use them to wipe his own backside if in a hurry and then would place them right back where you would assume they are clean dish drying cloths, for the use of dish drying.

On the subject of dish cloths, I usually soak them overnight with bleach and then do a separate wash. FW simply throws them in the wash with his other clothes including his skid-marked underwear!

I have resorted to thinking twice before allowing him into the kitchen, never mind ever daring to ask if he could help, say open a jar or a bottle of coke or something as the contents would go splashing about and I would have to realise yet again that trying persistently myself would result in far less work than having to clean up after FW.

He also has a habit of placing mail and larger objects over smaller objects so that anything you assumed would be visible (or even just where you placed it in a hurry), is never so.

I went through a ‘keys’ situation for about 2 weeks before I managed to nip it in the bud. FW decided to (repeatedly) remove my keys, from the table that I have been leaving them on (for years- so that I would know every morning exactly where they were) and put them in my handbag, wherein I would never look for my keys as I would never put them there. I got late for work on about 4 mornings, looking for my keys, and of course FW denied putting them in my handbag until I finally had a yelling session at him, after which the keys have remained exactly where I put them.

My home life has degenerated into a consistent search for things. I no longer live with the pleasure of knowing where anything is. Being able to find something in a hurry is lovely surprise. I end up buying new things to replace old things that I know I will have much difficulty finding. And I have less time and more irritation living at home than I used to. FW calls this normal and can’t understand why I am so uptight.

What never ceases to amaze me about him though is the consistent lack of common sense that goes along with the bad habits and butter fingers.

Once when on holiday, I tried unsuccessfully to get ketch-up out of a new bottle with thick sauce towards the neck. I knew if I jerked the bottle any harder it would spurt all over FW and me, so I signalled the waiter to help, assuming he would probably take it back and give us a more free-flowing bottle. FW grabbed the bottle and saying it was so unnecessary to call the waiter, attempted to do it himself.

Now I will tell you that on many occasions in life, a guy has offered to help out in some situations and until FW came along, they usually managed to surprise me with information or knowledge on things I would never have thought about, so having these experiences in mind (and not having known FW for very long at the time), I believed that perhaps he knew of a neat way to get ketch-up flowing more easily out of the bottle.

The fucking moron turned the bottle over, whacked it and spurt ketch-up all over me. And then I had to walk into our 5-star hotel lobby, having been previously treated like royalty by the staff, with fucking ketch-up all over my shirt!

And then there's his habit of cooking while leaving the kitchen cupboards and cutlery drawers open, so that the sauces from the stove splash around and items inside the cupboards and drawers are generally covered in dried sauce.

Today, he announced triumphantly that he washed the dishes, and I discovered a greasy frying pan in the cupboard. It looked clean on the inside but the underneath was covered in oven grease from being left on top of a roast pan. And the grease had made its way around a few other pots and the cupboard shelf as well.

Somebody help me.