Pet peeves: what an apt subject for Intermission right before the housing draw. I have been waiting for a chance to finally say what all freshmen should have said to their roommates on move-in day. Between September and now, I’m sure we’ve all cursed the fact that we didn’t lay the ground rules from the beginning, but now we have no choice but to live through the next five weeks as best we can. By “live through the next five weeks,” I mean complain all the things that piss us off about bad roommates (or so I’ve heard from other people; my roommates are actually not so bad. Thanks guys!):

1: Roommates who do the most annoying things at the most inopportune times

Look, college students for the most part do three things: eat, sleep and study (and drink, but whatever, that’s not the point). A lot of people would prefer to study and sleep in near or complete silence. The worst roommate is therefore the one that feels the need to do every little thing in the bedroom while you’re trying to catch up on sleep: doing homework, rustling papers around, stomping, talking on the phone, turning the faucet on and off for whatever reason, etc.

It’s not so much that these actions are annoying in and of themselves; it’s that they’re being done right when I decide to take a nap. Think of it this way: Living with roommates is entirely based on compromise. That’s pretty fair, right? So, if I’m tired I basically have only one option, which is to sleep in my bed (yeah, I could sleep somewhere else, but why find another room when I have my own bed?). You, on the other hand, have an entire campus (one of the largest ones in the country) in which you can do homework or talk on the phone. Why must you pick the one place I have to sleep in? Think about these things.

2: Dirty Roommates

To all the dirty roommates out there, don’t pretend like this doesn’t apply to you. I’m not even going to lie to you: You’re dirty as hell and a massive pain in the ass. First of all, realize that I’m not asking you to spot-clean every five minutes and compulsively file all your papers; there is a difference between mess and dirt. Mess is generally disorganization: papers strewn all over the desk, bags littering the floor, books tossed everywhere — anything that doesn’t cause an odor, yet makes the room look like a non-stop after-party hangout. Dirt, by contrast, includes leaving week-old food out in the open, collecting crusted dining hall dishes, refusing to pick up your dirty socks/underwear, your disgusting unwashed body — anything that could induce my gag reflex or give me a bacterial infection. So yes, it sucks being called “dirty” but shove your political correctness. The truth is the truth: You’re a slob, and it sucks something awful for the people around you.

3: Roommates who play their shitty music out loud while you’re trying to study

This one really baffles me. It’s almost as if you’re totally ignoring the fact that someone invented headphones at the turn of the century. Why do you think they made them in the first place? I can assure you that it wasn’t out of boredom. Remember “compromise”? If I’m doing something important like writing a paper worth 25% of my grade and you want to listen to Lil’ John, then bust out your Sonys, Phillips, Skull Candys or whatever brand soaks up all your cash, and plug up. Some might ask, “Well, what if their music isn’t so bad and you actually like Lil’ John?” This is quite possible, yes, but when I’m writing my paper, do you see me listening to music? Do I have headphones on at all? No. Therefore, if I won’t even play MY music while I’m studying, and we have similar tastes, then I damn sure don’t want hear you blasting yours.

4: Roommates that make you wish they were latchkey kids

Latchkey kids are the best, man. They had working mothers growing up, which means they were forced to do things independently — like wipe their own asses and dress themselves. Latchkey kids know what it’s like to live on their own, and therefore don’t think twice about taking out the trash, cleaning their dishes, vacuuming, etc. God forbid you get a roommate whose mother was constantly running behind them, cleaning their messes, and reminding them to make their bed and put their plates in the sink — you know, stuff that only adults would do themselves. Getting a latchkey kid roommate ensure you’ve got a hard worker in your domain. Won’t have to tell them twice. The non-latchkey kids...well, I don’t know, man. You’d think someone at Stanford wouldn’t be so lazy as to pile a heap of trash bigger than the city’s sewage system. This campus is just full of little surprises, isn’t it?

5: Sexiling

This is another one I don’t understand. What’s the purpose of kicking out your roommate for an entire night? You don’t have that much stamina. You get half an hour, tops. Isn’t that plenty of time for foreplay and the “bang, bang, bang, skeet, skeet, skeet”? What are you going to do afterwards? Talk? Please. Understand this: It’s really inconvenient to have to find a place to sleep other than the room to which the University assigned you — even if you have a bunch of friends. So slip it in, slip it out and then tell your starry-eyed boyfriend/girlfriend to get the hell out.

6: Sick roommates who don’t understand why they’re being avoided (and make no attempt to contain their germs)

It’s because you’re coughing up phlegm, sweetheart. And you’re not bothering to cover your mouth or throw away your green, mucous-laden tissues or wipe off the door handles. You’re the human incarnation of Sickness. Yes, with a capital “S”. Some people would rather not catch the plague, and you can probably help them out by staying clean and as far away as possible.

7: Roommates who forget they have roommates

Oh, this is a big one. Freshmen are especially prone to turning into what I call “space suckers”: people who basically transport their entire bedroom from home to campus, forgetting that only half the space is theirs. They’ll bring absolutely everything, including stuff that’s necessary but that they don’t use. I’ve definitely gone into a few rooms and seen empty shoe racks hanging above a waste pile of sneakers, heels and sandals. Or, there are people who wear the same 10-12 articles of clothing but have a stacked closet worthy of its own airtime on MTV Cribs. There’s more: crates, little drawer things you buy from the “dorm needs” section of Target, space savers (read: they take up more space than they save), empty bottles of alcohol, empty boxes (are you really going to put that much away in storage?), etc. Get rid of that shit. You’re a fire hazard.

8: Roommates that put your (expensive) belongings at risk

Otherwise known as the roommate who always leaves the door unlocked even when they know they aren’t coming back for several hours. Of course they take their laptop, iPod and money, only leaving everything you own prone to theft. This is something I don’t understand at all. You have a key. Is it really that much extra energy to slide it into the door handle and twist? And it’s not as if you’re just running to the shower and back; you’re fucking leaving. Gone, good bye, see ya! What am I supposed to do if a wandering thief waltzes into our room and later posts a discount price on a Macbook?

***

To whom this may apply, I hope you’re cowering in interminable shame. You confuse me, really. You’ve got the brainpower to get into this school, and possibly even be really successful here, yet you somehow can’t manage to carry your dirty dishes with you to the dining hall, or put your clothes on your bed instead of the floor. Is intelligence inversely proportional to common sense? Probably.