Roommate Wanted

I am registered to go to three blogging conferences in the next six months. My instinct with hotel arrangements is to get my own room because (a) I’m an only child – I don’t share, (b) I’m an introvert, and I like the idea of having a place to retreat to and regroup when I’m at my social limit (I used to kick my friends out in the morning after sleepovers when I felt they’d overstayed their welcome) and (c) I would love to keep up the illusion that I don’t poop. Ever. And that illusion is shattered pretty quickly when you’re sharing a room over the course of several days.

But there are several advantages to sharing a room, such as (a) you can have chats that are easier, and more in-depth than you can out on the noisy conference floor, (b) it often gives you a built-in social partner-in-crime so that you have someone to venture out with, or you have more opportunity to make your room a bit of a social hub, which can be a relief to introverts, and (c) the cost savings – last time I checked, my name was not Ivanka – I’ll bet she never poops.

For two of the conferences, I am lucky in that I actually know people this year and I am able to room with friends. For the third I don’t have a roommate, but all the single rooms are sold out. Not that the bathroom problem would be solved anyway, as they are shared, dorm bathrooms. Commence clenching.

The registration form had a spot for “Roommate Request.” I’m pretty sure they were looking for a name here, but instead I wrote: Someone without a prison record, who is friendly, yet won’t sit up watching me sleep or steal all of my left shoes. They’ll either put me with someone else with a sense of humour, or with someone who carries their own knife collection, and has cat-like reflexes because they think I’m the unstable one.

In all fairness, I think I am still scarred from my university days. I remember someone advising me to fill out my profile based on the kind of roommate that I wanted, and not based on what I was really like. In hindsight, that may have been bad advice. I could see the point they were making – if I wrote that I was a nightowl, I could get paired with a 3am partier or moody coffee-house dweller (actually that sounds a lot like me now). So I pretended that I was a chirpy morning person, and I think there were additional lies about being athletic (ha!), studious and organized. Possibly something about being friendly.

The first day of school I moved into the dorm, excited to meet my new roommate.
She didn’t show up.

I alternated between being sad that I had no one to bond with, scared that she took one look at me and headed for the Hilton, and excited that campus housing would never figure it out and I would get this huge (when compared with a washroom stall) room to myself.

Eventually she turned up the next day. She seemed nice and I thought we hit it off. We didn’t. She did not like me and made sure to tell everyone. And she also turned out to be an actual morning person. It was a rocky year.

I went on to have great roommates the next year, and she and I went our separate ways.

She is an OBGYN now, thankfully not practising here until the year I finished having babies. Can you just imagine how awkward that would be? Having your ex-roommate’s arm jammed up your vagina, when there isn’t even vodka first, is significantly more uncomfortable than having them sit outside the bathroom while you poop. I think. I’m not sure now. Anyway, I have given my husband strict instructions that if I ever need to be rushed to the hospital for some kind of gynecological emergency, he is to take me, by bicycle if necessary, to the next town. In fact I’m wondering if there is some kind of legal document I can draw up, like a DNR, but instead a Do Not Touch My Junk with an I’d Sooner Die clause. We may be breaking legal ground here.

We’d love to hear your roommate horror stories in the comments! Well, unless you were my roommate. Maybe use a code name – I don’t want to scare off my future roomies. Or has that ship sailed?

(Four of us BLUNTmoms are packing our bags for the BlogU Conference. It’s still several weeks away – and tickets are available – but we don’t want to risk forgetting any booze…I mean clothes. If you’re coming to BlogU, leave us a little note so that we know to look out for you.)