Dude, where's my pan?
By: Peter
It’s safe to say that at one point in our lives, sharing a place with a roommate, we’ve all experienced someone who doesn’t do their dishes. Pete discovered that this particular situation can sometimes be taken to the extreme. “At the time I kind of always had to have a roommate and I knew this old musician buddy of mine. I was a little worried about this guy, especially when he first moved in because he was just so intense and weird. One of the things he would do was every Sunday I’d come home and he was camped out on the couch eating sardines out of a can and watching the Sci-Fi channel. It was just a marathon Sci Fi channel session. The house would stink. You would literally have to vacate the house. Unfortunately, the worst thing about him was that he would cook and make these home burgers. He’d use a half of a pound of beef and smash it down and make a hamburger on the stove and the pan would fill with grease. The house would smell like grease. He would never turn the fan on either. The worst part was that he would never do his dishes. I would say stuff like, ‘Hey dude, could you clean that pan?’ ‘No man, its clean.’ ‘No, you haven’t cleaned it. It’s been there for two days now.’ You look at it and there would be caked on grease.
So I finally decided I’m going to prove my point. He cooked a burger and just left the pan on the stove. I knew it would be at least a couple of weeks until he’d clean the pan to cook another burger. So I got a piece of paper and I wrote, ‘Dirty pan, by Bill’ and wrote down the date. I stuck it in the pan underneath the grease. The grease was still kind of soft. I waited and waited and waited. Finally, the pan was stinking the house up so bad, I stuck it in the oven and closed the oven door because at least it wouldn’t stink the whole house up. I kept waiting to see if he would clean it. He never cleaned it. It was over a month and a half and I was sitting there with him one day and my girlfriend was over. I said, ‘Bill are you ever going to clean that pan?’ ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about?’ ‘This pan right here. Dude, can you clean your pan?’ I pulled it out of the oven and showed it to him. He says, ‘I just used that the other day.’ ‘Do me a favor and come over here.’ I scrape off the grease and remove the paper and show it to him. He totally blows it off and say’s ‘Are you sure it wasn’t yours?’ It was just a classic example of how disgusting he was.
I finally found a way to get rid of him. I was getting married and I told him, ‘I’m getting married and of course I’m not going to want a roommate anymore. I’m going to want you to move out.’ He says, ‘Sure.’ It got down to about a month or two before I was getting married and I asked, ‘So Bill have you found a place yet?’ ‘No, this is a really bad time for me to try to find another place.’ ‘Well, I’m getting married and Amy’s moving in and Petey (my son) is going to need that room. You’ve gotta do something pretty soon.’ A week before I was getting married, he’s still sitting around the house like a squatter and I ask again, ‘Dude, can you find another place?’ ‘I don’t know, its kind of a tough time.’ What ended up happening was that Amy and I found a place for him. We moved him into her old place. It got to the night before her mom and whole family was coming into town. They were going to be sleeping in that room. He knew he was supposed to move out. We basically had to kick him out of the house. I said to him, ‘Amy’s mom is going to be sleeping in this room tomorrow.’ He was shocked and said, ‘Dude, what are you talking about?’ He was the worst roommate I’ve ever had. He had absolutely no clue. No common sense or decency.”