I know it must be starting to sound like I'm the roommate from hell here.  I mean, how can one man have so much to complain about, right?  I must be doing something wrong, right? 

It's like when someone's constantly bitching about their lying, cheating, conniving whore of a boyfriend, or something, and you want to just tell them, dude, why is it that you always end up with the lying, cheating, conniving whore of a boyfriend?  Did you ever think it could be you?  A little bit?  I mean, you're obviously a lying, cheating, conniving whore of a boyfriend magnet.  What's up with that?

Hey, I'll admit I have issues.  Roommate issues, mostly.  Mainly, I don't want to live in other people's filth, but it's not that I'm a neat freak, either.  I don't want to live in a museum, but something short of Sanford & Son would be nice.  Keep your slag pile behind your bedroom door and we won't have a problem. 

At the Orphanage, when I moved in, the dining room had been totally taken over by the Althea Chen Memorial Hoarding Museum.  This was before the A&E series, so I didn't know I was dealing with a hoarder.  They don't all live alone, apparently.  We managed through craft and subterfuge (we had a Hazmat party for Halloween) to relocate her nest of cherished twigs, hairballs, stained rags and bogies to a far corner of the basement. 

These last four or five years, ever since being forced by a sudden change of fortunes to share housing, have utterly destroyed my faith in the power of the Golden Rule.  And it's not like I have been living among savages you can't expect to know any better.  Most of my roomies have had advanced degrees.  And like me — like you, too, I imagine — they have all had a keenly developed and sharply attuned sense of right and wrong.  Mostly of the I'm-right-they're-wrong variety, but still — it's a start, right?

I have to say, I think the internet is partly to blame.  It definitely exacerbated Madam Chen's problem.  Hoarders like to sort through their treasure.  But she had to split her time between her real and virtual hoards, giving short shrift to both in the end. 

Not to mention putting the rest of us at bodily risk on an almost daily basis by her multitasking.  On several occasions — too many to count, really — she put on a pot of rice, only to return when she heard the fire brigade pull up out front.  I was really lucky to get out of there with my life.  The place is a tinderbox. 

In a horrifying repeat of past traumas just this morning, Chang put on some special tea — instead of just boiling the water and then steeping it, he tossed a couple of teabags in, added some fruit juice, and sets the pot to boil.  Twenty minutes later, the smoke alarm goes off.  Done! Steeped to charred perfection!

Actually, the smoke alarm went off, and I came out of my room, made my way through the blackberry passion haze, and turned off the burner.  I knocked on Eng and Chang's door.  Nothing.  I opened all the windows and grabbed the fan, and knocked again.  Still nothing. 

Ten minutes later, Chang comes out, blinking and smiling.

"Oh," he says.

Yeah.  Oh.

Did you hear the ear-splitting smoke alarm? I ask.

"Oh.  No."

More blinking, smiling.

Were you wearing your headphones?  I asked.

"Oh, yes."

I'm like: OK, well, be careful with that.

It's called virtual/real life balance, bitches. 

I mean, granted, this shit never happens in cyberspace.  When was the last time you heard of the Sims setting fire to their house?  Or a barn-burning in Farmville?

Cyberspace is relatively safe.  But for those few of us in the resistance, inhabiting the real world is getting ever more dangerous.

And icky.

There is a sanitary napkin — a maxi pad I guess you gals call them — that's been on the bathroom floor since Friday.  In plain view of the john when you're doing your business. 

It's making me reconsider this whole virtual/real life balance.  I mean, they don't make cyber sanitary napkins, do they?  They don't need 'em.  Do the Sims even menstruate?   Do they have toilets in Second Life? 

Maybe that's where I should move next.