Community Cloggers

Housemates are a funny thing. Iron still sharpens iron. God loves community even though we might want to smack other tenants upside their ear. And one of the ways we grow is when our community ticks us off. This observation occurred to me again today as I went to my fridge this morning and found someone had broken the seal on my mango juice and had some. There were several ways I could either respond or react to this.

1. Lock my fridge (I have the key in my desk drawer, I’m just really loathe to take that step).
2. Stick a sarcastic note on my fridge door for said party to read when they get thirsty again.
3. Kindly ask said party if they had some of my mango juice and request that they ask my permission to drink my juice in the future.

I took step number three. It’s the one which is a response and not a reaction. Because it’s done in love, not with vengeance or sardonically. Although I thought the note was fairly worded and went as follows:
“Before you help yourself to anything in my fridge, unless I have offered or you have asked, it’s a boundary crossed that shouldn’t be assumed. I have a weekly budget – please be considerate.”

I thought this was grammatically awfully diplomatic, but the gentle confrontation was still God’s top seller. I had to whip the note back off the fridge door and buy the book in the end. And the mango juice drinker seemed all good with it. Nothing worse than a vibe with the person sleeping on the other side of your bedroom wall, is there?

I’ve always said about the comparison between living with others and living alone (my all time preference because it just cuts out taking on other people’s people, thefts, others walking into the bathroom when you’re naked and soaking in a hot bubbly one, people moving your things around or using the last of your sugar and you get to walk around in the nud) that when I live alone I can leave a great big chocolate cake in the middle of the lounge floor for three days and still find it there after a week if I want to. But that’s a bit of a lost dream in my life right now, so I best learn to get along with my housemates.

Anyone notice how the TV remote becomes a power tool that no one wants to relinquish? There are four main characters in our little 13th street drama in Parkhurst – the landlord, who spends a great deal of time watching CNN, Sky and news and weather on any channel he can find it, our other housemate who watches mostly doccies and the odd movie, the kid who plays High School Musical and cartoon channel full throttle for a solid afternoon’s viewing and myself, who’s kind’ve hooked on Crime Investigation channel, and upwards to Animal Planet, with the odd Zone Reality thrown in.
And the television pecking order happens as follows:
1. Landlord. He owns the house so he gets to watch what he wants for as long as he wants to. That includes The Olympics, cricket matches until you can cry and rugby games in length that make the lounge almost ooze testosterone. But he’s the landlord and a rather considerate one most times when you can convince him to switch a channel.
2. The other housemate. He doesn’t come out much but once he’s picked a National Geographic episode or History channel special he favours, you best enjoy it, too. Fortunately, I do.
3. The kid. More High School Musical than you can stomach in less than a day. And The Suite Life of Cody and Zack with the hyped all-around overacting and dramatisation that kids seem to love is ever popular with this girl.
4. Myself and the hardcore stuff that no one tends to hang around long enough to sit through. Such as Crime Investigation – mostly too disturbing. Animal Planet’s rescue doccies can make a grown man cry, so everyone avoids the lounge when I’m watching bedraggled poodles get their first bath since months of neglect. Those ones touch my heart and I’m also designing a vet’s logo, so it’s indispensable reference for me. And there are those nights when I just want to be left alone to veg off and won’t budge off the Style Network. Yup, homosexuals plutzing over a beautifully dressed nest does me just fine for a light watch some nights. And no one else wants to see that. I’m just bingeing visually on creativity.
But more adventures of the house on 13th in the days to come. It’s a full house. That can only mean the chances of a dull day being about as possible as the neighbours’ cat not drooling onto the ivy as he watches (through his eyes) delicious, fat, not very fast or bright pigeons on my feeder from a distance.