So I stopped writing about Lesser Phil and producing episodes for a handful of reasons-
1. On March 14th, only days after my most recent entry on him, we hung out, went to Chipotle and had a heart to heart. I decided he wasn’t such a bad guy.
2. The following day we traveled together to look for a cat for the house together. We found Stubs (real name “Dusty”) at the Petsmart just up the road. I was in love. By Sunday I had adopted Dusty and because of the SIX HOURS LP and I had hung out for on that Friday, I felt l had actually reached a friendship point with LP (I know you’re gagging and rolling your eyes, just hang tight). Though I am a douchebag quite often, blatantly continuing to wreck the “reputation” of one of my friends with harsh words and judgments was not something I could continue doing. Additionally, if you read my entry on “Things I hate about my Flatmate” you will learn that I firmly believe writers and artists should quit while ahead, rather than just pursuing mediocrity in an effort to benefit some sort of dissatisfied ‘fan base.’ So if I didn’t really hate LP, it would show in the writing, and that’s not fair to you, me or him. If I’m going to represent him in a poor light, it should be unbiased hatred or at least severe dislike. It’s the only fair way to judge him.
3. Foy had sympathy for the roommate. He had never met him, and thought that I was moderately cruel in my statements. Every time I would begin an entry on LP, I would feel bad, and reflect (even if only for a moment) on why Foy thought I was being unfair. Foy’s contentions made sense and I hated that, because it made me hate what I was doing. (Even though his opinion would shift- explained later, it still had a drastic effect on my perception of my actions at the time.)
4. I’ve been really really fucking busy.
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In the following Month and a half I have had multitudes of experiences with LP, some good, some bad.
However, my loyalty to Mi Casa maintained and I stopped airing dirty laundry. I didn’t explain because I didn’t want to/feel the need to justify my decision, had stopped blogging altogether (not just LP episodes), and had a small belief that it would not be the end of my LP aggravations.
I had some things to complain about with LP but at the same time, none of them were singularly big enough to really force me to take up the keyboard in angst and file a cyber complaint. Examples:
+When I went to NY/NPDA- He ate all my food in the fridge. He paid me back for it, but it was a pain in the ass that I should come back from NPDA really tired, frustrated, stressed, and hungry only to find that I had nothing to eat and had to adventure BACK OUT to acquire food, taking more time from my life and causing more stress by making me do twice the work as otherwise (IE grocery shopping twice to end up with the same amount of food).
+He leaves the balcony door open…- LP has a room that overlooks the backyard (as explained in Episode 5) that has a balcony. It has a screen door and a much larger door. Now that it is warmer, this is not such a big deal. But our house is fucking INEFFICIENT when it comes to utilities. So while the screen door is closed and locked, the interior door is open because he “gets hot.” I’m going to try not to get angry as I explain HOW MUCH THIS COSTS ME!!!! Grrrr. So by increasing our gas prices significantly via this open door DESPITE me talking to him about it several times, he’s begging for me to say shit about him. Instead I opt to actually solve the problem, (I know they aren’t mutually exclusive, but look to the above four reasons as to why I decided not to write about it), and I talk to him. He, as of tonight, is still fucking doing it.
Let’s pause here for a second and review this particular instance of dissatisfaction. First, he could close the vent that lets hot air into his room. It’s right by his bed. Secondly, HE COULD TURN OFF THE HEAT IN THE HOUSE. Chas and I are not cold when Phil is complaining it’s hot… rather than HEATING THE OUTDOORS he could just turn the mother-fucking gas off. (I’m fairly certain I’m getting angry. I apologize). Three, I ASKED HIM TO STOP AND HE DIDN’T. BUY A GODDAMN FAN OR PAY MY UTILITIES BILL.
I move on with my life in regards to this issue, partially because I am non-confrontational to my roommates but mostly because I was just too fucking busy to actually take up the complaint and whenever I was going to, he wasn’t committing the crime. I felt I needed to catch him in the act in order to do it.
+He is late on paying bills- Job #2 fired him for “unknown reasons” though I would contend he is just oblivious to anyone’s feelings but his own and has such a SKEWED perception on the world due to ignorance, sheer idiocy, or some sort of social deficiency that he is not able to perceive why he comes off as such a dick or creepy person to other individuals. I didn’t write about this one because everyone has one of those fucking roommates that is late on bills. But I’m super broke. Like…. the brokest of broke. Like, sell-an-organ/blood-or-your-most-valuable-possessions-type-broke-in-order-to-squeak-by type brok. Or Borrow-money-from-good-friends-and-hope-you’ll-pay-them-back-so-you-work-overtime-or-doubletime- just-to-increase-the-chances-of-actually-paying-them-back… someday…. type broke. Anyway- I take pity on him, and assume he’s good for the funds. Keep in mind I sort of view him as a friend, so I’m more willing to put up with this sort of shit and thus am non-confrontational.
+He keeps leaving the back door unlocked- Obviously, since I allude to exactly where I live on my blog, and have, I’m not going to write that on-line and let the world wide web there’s potential access to my house 24/7. However, I live in a pretty bad neighborhood. My roommate Chas (the God given savior of all roommates) was car jacked out back in September… at gunpoint. I talk to LP about this, he says he’ll improve, but I’m never home often enough to notice. Worse still, I don’t know even when I AM home because I start to park out front because I’m lazy and don’t like walking across the backyard (especially since snow was melting and it was raining and so everything was slick and wet on that hill that leads down to my house which had caused me to get dirty via falling a couple of times already). None-the-less, it is occurring up until about two days ago.
+All of the past annoyances continue- Whining a fuck ton, talking on the phone INCREDIBLY LOUD even when I’m trying to sleep, harassing Chewie in and effort to get her to like him (she would bite off his arm if he tried to touch her, so his solution is to corner her and say things “awww, come on puppy. don’t hate me!” thus terrifying her and just making her LESS likely to come near him ever again), taking hours to get ready in the bathroom when I’m running late, and requesting rides to places ALL THE TIME.
+My friends think he’s a creeper- Mark and Jon think LP is “alright” and don’t have much judgment beyond noting his quirkiness. Foy, upon finally meeting him, perceives the exact same thing I did when I first met LP- there’s something just not quite right about him and concedes that I was in the right about judging/writing about him Julie, the girl who he harassed when I brought her over for literally 90 seconds (which apparently I didn’t write about), is brought up constantly by him to me for a period of three weeks. Though she initially thought he might be sort of cool, she told me never to give him her information. I tell LP she’s a tease (partially true) and he ‘moves on.’ Chas notes that there’s “something off about him” but can define what. Robyn, Jordan, and Priya, after insisting on meeting him, (because they think I’m keeping some hunk from them (even though I explicitly tell them he’s an ugo), come over to meet him. They agree with my judgment and catch him spread eagle on the couch watching sports with legs propped up wearing basketball shorts ::shudder:: In short- there’s just something not right with him, and so even though no one but me used the word ‘creeper,’ they all amounted to either lesser or equivalent synonyms.
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So my list of annoyances clearly built up over time but I still wasn’t motivated to take up Internet effort with them and was also hella busy. So I let it go assuming I would either get to it later or the problem would be solved by the time I did get to it (I was hoping for the latter of the two, honestly).
Then I went to NFA. Chewie is boarded and I leave Dusty in the care of Chas and LP. I have no reason to believe he won’t get food or water, and Dusty is pretty fucking loving (and he killed three mice the night before I left meaning that I should leave him to continue his dirty work while I’m gone). I’m also broke, so no boarding for Dusty and LP tells me that he’ll be fine. I trust him.
Scene: Sunday April 20th, 4:30 pm Central Time, Tennessee State Campus, Nashville TN
I get a text from Chas directly prior to my last round @ NFA. It reads “I came home and Phil had eaten all my food!” Chas had been out of town the previous week at the Grand Canyon and San Francisco, so it is no surprise to me that LP pulled the same shenanigans on Chas that he did to me. Chas is quite upset. I have to quickly respond and get to my impromptu round so I say “Yeah, he did that to me a couple of weeks ago too, we need to talk to him about it.”
Chas apparently responds but since I have silenced my phone, I don’t get the text until post the round (thank God). “Yeah. All of it is pretty much eaten. And now I can’t find the cat.”
I text back as soon as I receive it, and then I call Chas. Chas can’t understand the garbled version of what I am saying thanks to reception, but I hear his explanation loud and clear.
“I thought that Phil had eaten only part of my food. He said- “I’ll pay you back for it, I feel really bad,” and I thought he had eaten like a sandwich or two, not a loaf of bread, sack of chicken breasts, all my peanut butter, and three frozen pizzas. But yeah- I came home and the door was open, it’s been open about three times in the last week. Not fully open, just partially. We have that screen door but that opens and closes at will, but today was different. Both doors were wide open.”
Dusty has been attempting to slip out the door every time we have opened it for the last two weeks. There have been a couple of times where one of us is required to chase him down and bring him back inside. The door being open even a little bit is a problem.
Chas continues- “So I look around for the cat and shut the door. I find Phil and ask him why the door was open. “It’s so that way the cat can come back in if it comes back.” What??? I asked him what he meant by that and he said that the cat was missing. I don’t know how long the cat has been gone Nat, it was here yesterday morning and Phil says it was here last night… but I don’t remember seeing it. I searched the house but I didn’t find him. I’ll look again when I get off of work but… I just don’t know. I don’t have any good news for you.”
So let’s review this one-
1. I articulate the unlocked door being a problem…. so then he starts forgetting to shut it.
2. My cat gets out and he doesn’t EVER talk to me about it. He still hasn’t. I have to hear from Chas who had to ASK where the cat was for us to even know. Lord only knows how long it would have been before LP, if ever, would have told us Dusty was gone.
3. HE MADE NO EFFORT TO FIND THE CAT.
4. Let me repeat- HE DIDN’T TELL ME, EVEN THOUGH I WAS OUT OF TOWN 9 HOURS AWAY AND HE KNEW THIS, THAT MY BABY BOY WAS MISSING.
5. Chewie also slips out the door and has been bolting up the road and has almost been hit by a car twice, had I not put her in the kennel, most likely one, if not both, of my pets would be dead right now. What a fucking irresponsible jackass.
End of this story is that I got my cat back. Someone picked him up a street to the west and a good while south to us…. on the other side of a five lane fast paced street (Dodge). The kind soul(s) dropped off my little transient at the local animal shelter soon after. He apparently was only out of the house for a few hours and since he is microchipped, they were calling me by Sunday afternoon to tell me they had him, but they didn’t leave a voicemail and so I didn’t know who had called and was too busy w/ NFA and stressing out about Dusty and NFA drama and sick teammates to deal with calling back a random 402 area code number. If they want me, leave some sort of message. So for 24 hours I fretted, attempted to call and report him missing but apparently you have to physically go in and actually fill out a paper form and prove ownership, but I learned that he was safe. I also learned that it is a 13 dollar charge per day for care @ the shelter (review above where I talk about being broke) and 35 dollars bail to get him out. Total = 74 dollars of cost to see Dusty again…. WHEN I DID NOTHING TO LOSE HIM.
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Unfortunately for you all, as readers, or ‘fans’ or just people who have nothing better to do with your time then peruse the LP episodes, they are drawing to a grand finale. I really really really could kill him. I have been waiting my time out so that when I talk to him, I don’t suddenly get the urge to stab him or something…. Because he needs to pay for somethings before I evict him.
1. Gas and Water bill- 110 dollars
2. Cable bill- 45 dollars
3. Power bill- 15 dollars
4. Chas’ groceries- 50 dollars (closest estimate w/out knowing precise details)
5. The bill to get Dusty back- 74 dollars
That’s almost 300 dollars.
After that, I am KICKING HIM THE FUCK OUT. PS- Chas is fully in agreement with it. Had Chas not pointed out that we should get the money first, LP would already be packing his stuff. So it’s a two step process. Make him believe that we will not kick him out if he pays up and is sorry for his sins… then kick him the fuck out. I have ZERO tolerance for someone hurting the things or people I care about. ZERO. Dusty is still acting weird and is a lot more docile. I don’t know what happened to him on the streets, but he is not the same cat he was when I left. Read the entry posted directly before this about the mean kitty song…. when I left he was Sparta…. now he’s just loafing around and won’t even really come hang out in my room, let alone attack me in my sleep… which actually concerns me.
Overall my feelings come down to this-
You do not endanger your roommates’ lives continuously by leaving the door unlocked and then “solve” the problem by being a fucking dumbass and not even knowing how to close a door, recognize that you let their pet go (officially Dusty is in my name as far as adoption but Chas’ loves the fuck out of that cat too), AND NOT FUCKING TELL ANYONE AND/OR LOOK FOR THE CAT.
He’s so fucking oblivious…. I have never wanted to injure someone so badly in my life. When I think about him my eyes are filled with rage and I see red.
Anyway- that’s the latest episode of LP. I don’t care if you liked it… because I didn’t. I’m so pissed off.
Had Dusty been permanently missing or dead…. this would have been a significantly more angry blog entry than it already is…. and my roommate might be filing an assault and/or battery charge against me.
OH- HERE’S SOME FUCKING IRONY FOR YOU- TWO DAYS PRIOR TO MY DEPARTURE TO NFA LESSER PHIL ASKS IF HE CAN TAKE DUSTY WHEN HE MOVES OUT BECAUSE HE “LOVES KITTY” AND CAN’T IMAGINE “LIVING WITHOUT HIM.” grrrrrr. You’re such a douchebag Lesser Phil. I’m SOOOOOOO glad I just looked you in the eyes and said- “No, he’s mine. You don’t have a reliable future, you don’t know what you’re doing, there’s no reason for you to invest or take on a pet right now. No offense, but that’s the truth.” He agreed. If only I had known how right I was. If only….
