Don’t tempt your roommate to commit homicide

Home Opinion Don’t tempt your roommate to commit homicide
Don’t tempt your roommate to commit homicide
A college dorm room. | Pixabay

Is your roommate secretly plotting to kill you?

This is admittedly a difficult question to answer. Most of us would reflexively respond with something like: “I’m a great person! Everyone loves me! Why would my roommate want to kill me?” Unfortunately, it’s a sentiment as naive as it is humble. I mean, people get murdered every day. Somebody’s gotta be wrong. 

According to the FBI, 54.3% of murder victims were sent to The Great Big Boarding House in the Hereafter by an aquaintance, whether that be a neighbor, Jehovah’s Witness, cookie-peddling Girl Scout, or…roommate.

It’s a sad fact of life that roommates often miss the subtle clues which hint at an impending rage. Take, for instance, the phrase: “If you don’t stop snoring when you sleep, I am literally going to kill you.” While often mistaken for the witty repartee expected from a roommate, any serious analysis of the previous statement reveals a surprisingly murderous undertone.

One sure-fire way to awaken the homicidal maniac in your roommate is to insist on having differing schedules. I’m sorry to say this, but Health Nuts make the top of the hit list. Waking up for your morning run when it’s darker than my future isn’t exactly the problem here (you just have to be a little insane). The issue is you blundering through the room, ransacking drawers like a screwy chimp with a search warrant. 

Let’s not forget neglecting to pair your airpods before playing music. Nobody wants to hear Justin Bieber’s “Baby” at 5:30 a.m. (Honestly, I can’t think of a time when anyone would want to hear it). 

Health Nuts spend their lives running away from an early death — in some cases, literally — avoiding genetically-altered teenage mutant corn products and getting a literal high from long-distance trots. But what they don’t realize is the greatest threat to their longevity is closer than they think, lying awake in the dark, teetering on the edge of insanity. 

Health Nuts aren’t the only culprits — there are plenty of ways us normal people can drive our roommates insane. One is especially egregious. Let me put it this way: If cleanliness is next to godliness, some of y’all are going to H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. Not keeping your part of the room clean — or worse, allowing your crap to jump the border and get intermixed with your roommate’s things — is a major no-no. 

For some reason, some roommates think it’s OK to leave laundry strewn all around the room dangling off furniture and covering the floor like it’s the original Palm Sunday. It looks like a laundry basket stepped on a landmine. 

And that’s not the only clutter cluttering the room. You know who you are. Piles and piles of plastic bottles and food wrappers dot your room like indian burial mounds. There’s more plastic in your room than in the entire cast of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.” All this contributes to a room smell that would just make a skunk sit down and cry. 

All this is to say that yes, your roommate is most certainly plotting to kill you. And right now, your only hope for survival is to be the best roommate you can be until summer rolls around. But who am I kidding? Being a good roommate is hard work! So when you balk at the upcharge for a single room next semester, just remember that it’s cheaper than a funeral.

 

Nick Treglia is a sophomore studying History and Applied Mathematics.