» Housemates from hell

two-day housemate
My sharehouse was devolving - I was happy to see the back of thicky, fat-arsed Jazz but Tash and I had lived together happily together for over a year, and would remain friends unto this day.

So I went on the rounds of searching/interviewing for a place. But what luck, the third place I went to was a lovely apartment - close to the city, with a pool in the complex and sharing with a girl of similar age to myself.

Saturday morning I rock over with a carload of stuff. The new girl seems overly eager to help me with my moving. Making sure that I put everything away neatly in my room. We make small talk and she tells me what terrible trouble she's had finding someone permanent. Everyone stays for only a couple of months for some reason. 'Crap' I say. 'That must suck'. Oh well, methinks, I am a nice person and am definitely looking for somewhere to live for a year or more.

Later that day, I bring over my next load. Kitchen and lounge-room stuff. As I begin to disperse some of my possessions in the lounge she starts having issues with it. 'That's not staying there is it?' Ummmm, well, yes it is. I ask if she's made space for me in the kitchen. Yes she has. One shelf. For my food, cutlery, crockery, everything. I tell her this won't be enough and she looks angry. Finally she says she'll give me one more shelf. When I say this still won't be enough she gets quite huffy. (There are about 14 cupboards in the kitchen btw).

I decide to leave it and go about unpacking the rest. But she follows me around. Everywhere. She obviously doesn't trust me or something. I'm beginning to get a bit stressed out by her behaviour and wonder who I've moved in with. But I stifle those worries as it's a great pad.

Later that evening, she also casually mentions that she's a christian, so will be at church tomorrow. She goes in the morning and the afternoon.

Ooer, I think. I would have liked it if she'd told me before I moved in, I think. i don't have an issue with religious folk per se, but perhaps some of my activities don't always gel with the christian lifestyle... I begin to worry.

At 3am I wake up, worrying about this strange new house I've moved into. Insomnia isn't unusual for me, so I go downstairs for some crappy telly and hot milk. I've barely turned the telly on when she wakes up (I don't know how - I was quieter than a mouse's fart) and joins me - unable to trust me in the lounge on my own.

She commandeers the television, and insists on watching one of those weird-arse US evangelists... then she starts telling me how when he toured Australia she went to see him in concert and how great it was. She starts to tell me about his wonderful teachings...

I'm starting to freak out excessively at this point.

The next day was a repeat of the first. Her following me everywhere around the house. Getting angry if I place anything anywhere except in my room. And starts getting narky if I do 'outrageous' things like cooking without asking her.

I speak to my boyfriend. I'm not happy. I don't know what to do. I feel that i may have made a terrible mistake. He calms me down and urges me to give it a bit more time - maybe she'll settle down in a week or so?

But later that afternoon, after more weirdness and her starting to try to convert me, I am in my room, crying with tiredness and fear. I decide I need to talk to someone with Yoda-like wisdom. My mum. Since it's a long distance call, I ask where the phone is.

No, she says. I want you to get your own account. Oh, I say, like the pin-number thingy with separate phone accounts? No, says she again - I want you to pay the phone company to put in an extra line as I don't want you using my phone.

The final straw. I responded hysterically 'But that costs hundreds of dollars - and I just want to call my mum!' and burst into tears.

To be fair, my tears melt her previously ice-cold christian heart and she 'lets' me use the telephone to call my mum.

My mum is very wise. When I tell her the story of all the goings-on she says, sagely: Get out, now!!!!

To cut a ridiculously long story a bit shorter - after losing my bond and some rent money, and being abused by the christian, the christian's boyfriend, and the 'heavy' she brings round the next day, I end up moving my stuff to a friends house on a monday evening. The quickest f**kin move I've ever done.

That was very stressful. It then took me about two months to find another place. I now ask any potential housemates about ANY religious affiliation before moving in. I would recommend you, dear reader, do the same.

That is all. Very long, isn't it?
(Sun 8th Apr 2007, 14:45, More)

» Other people's diaries

Diary of shame
When I was about 21 a couple of friends read a diary of mine – it was okay though as I’d let them. I figured it was just the usual teenage bullsh*t you write when you’re thirteen and think no one else could possibly know the pain of pimples, exams and unrequited lust.

There was lots of ‘I really like [insert name here]. I really, really hate [insert name here]. What is the point of [insert tortured issue of the week here]???’ My friends were having a good chuckle but I just shrugged it off. There wasn’t anything truly embarrassing in there… or was there?

One of my friends started doubling over with laughter at one particular point, while the others demanded to know what was so funny. So she read it out:

‘I’ve been having such a bad day, but now I’m listening to “Hold me now” by Johnny Logan. Oh, that song is so inspirational and beautiful, it really touches my heart.’

Oh the shame. I can never live it down.

Length? The song is 3 minutes of excremental pap.
(Wed 7th Feb 2007, 1:27, More)

» Work Experience

library b*tch
Many moons ago, I had the misfortune to be a librarian, which is surprisingly even more boring than most people can imagine.

We used to get lots of kiddies in for work experience, most of them thinking ‘I like books, I’ll work in a library’, little realising that contrary to popular opinion, the staff didn’t spend all their time lolling at their desks with a book in their hands, but running round returning, shelving and re-ordering books, and helping punters find titles such as ‘A field guide to pumpkin varieties’ or ‘Help – my husband wears my clothes’*.

Consequently, most of the grommets were slightly pissed off to find they had to fill their days stacking books or re-ordering them according to the Dewey Decimal System, and by about day three we would usually find them hidden up the back in the 900 aisle (history and geography, in case you wondered) with a magazine, or tucked up in the Wendy house* trying to get some shut eye

Until Sally came along, a girl so obnoxious she made Paris Hilton look like Nelson Mandela. This girl took a rather ‘pro-active’ approach to her work experience. Rather than listening, watching and learning the somewhat mundane trade, she decided after about two hours of being there that she new better than everyone combined and did not hesitate in informing us at all intervals, vociferously.

While I or another staff member was serving a customer, she would jump in with her own two cents, talking over the top of us, which either led to her sending the person off in the completely wrong direction, or more often than not, leading to an argument where one of us would angrily tell her she didn’t know what she was talking about, and the customer would wonder what had caused their local library to become such a hotbed of internal conflict and disagreement.

By day three we all despised her, the final straw being me catching her trying to observe and write down the safe combination as someone else put away our (albeit modest) day’s takings.

So we expelled her from the premises. Yes, we expelled someone from work experience. In a library.

I have no idea, but I like to think little Sally went on to a stellar career in sanitation management or perhaps as a prison officer . However since she was probably such an officious little know-it-all she probably ended up in human resources.

*ps absolutely true book title

*pps you wouldn’t have found me anywhere near that Wendy house – more than once an overexcited child had left a ‘deposit’ in there for one of us to clean up…

*pps Length? She was only there three days – long enough to piss me off good and proper though.
(Fri 11th May 2007, 2:03, More)

» World's Sickest Joke

joke from the port arthur massacre
Right after the port arthur massacre - early 1990s, 35-dead shooting spree, in a quaint Tasmanian tourist town - I heard this joke:

My mum went to Port Arthur and all she brought back was this bloody T-shirt!

Very sick but I laughed my self stupid (not hard)

First post - pop!
(Fri 6th Jan 2006, 4:14, More)

» Strict Parents

parents so strict I wasn't bullied
My mother was insanely strict - certain commercial television channels were off-limits, ALL american television was off-limits and I was not allowed coffee, chips, sweets, to wear any black, to have friends over, to get dirty, to stay up late or to generally have a normal childhood.

But the one that takes the cake is when we moved to a state in Australia where schools did not have uniforms. My mother was having none of this and actually made my sister and I uniforms at home that we had to wear to school every day. These consisted of collared, long sleeved white shirts and a plain blue skirt, knee-length of course.

I'm surprised I wasn't bullied more often. I think some of the kids at my school considered it, took a good look at what I had to wear every day and decided I'd suffered enough. It's a wonder I turned a relatively normal person, although the years of therapy have helped a lot...!

Edit: Oh and no make up, no pierced ears (they were 'common') and I wasn't allowed to grow my hair long until I was 12 (which led to 12 years of 'hello lad' from old people). Who forces a young girl to have boy hair? My mum that's who.
(Thu 15th Mar 2007, 3:20, More)