My roommate walks through the door into our apartment. I always hear him before I see him; he is constantly mumbling to himself. It is loud enough for me to hear, but rarely is it intelligible. He walks through the living room with his usual brisk pace. I look up at him, but he blows by, not making any eye contact with me. He can't- at least not anymore. And that is understandable.
He walks through the adjoining bathroom area into his room. I can still hear his low mumbles- erratic, bumbling words and jumbled sentence fragments. Even with his door shut, it's audible. It's kind of like the hum of traffic. After a while, you just get used to the noise and tune it out. All of the various sounds, once unique and meaningful words, become the ambient background noise of my apartment.
He comes out of his room barely twenty seconds later and my eyes follow him as he storms into the kitchen. He yanks open the refrigerator and, just,.. stares. No movement, except from his mouth.
"Mmuubmebumeuhmbmeh," he sweetly whispers to what I can only assume was his yogurt.
Ten seconds later and he is on the move again, back to his room. I barely have enough time to digest what just happened before he is back out again, this time with a phone pressed to his head. Normally, I would think something to myself along the lines of, "You're not fooling anyone by pretending to be talking to someone on the phone. At this point we all know you talk to yourself, man." But I don't think I have the right to criticize anything he does. Not anymore.
Still at his furious pace, he rushes into the kitchen. "Hmm.." he ponders, again looking inside the refrigerator. This loop happens two more times- each with a brief pause for more private mumbling in his room- before he is finally settled. I noticed that each time he walked by me, he avoided any eye contact. I can't blame him. And even if he did look at me, there's no way that he could see me in the same way as he used to after what happened this morning.
It all started with a headache. Actually, I guess it technically started with me waking up, but I had a headache when I woke up. And the headache is important, so that's what it all started with.
So, I woke up with a headache, which upon review seems to be a much smoother way to start this part of the story (what is editing?). It was a pretty painful one, too: the kind that is sensitive to light. I looked at my phone for the time- 10:00 AM. This was good news, as my roommate is usually not at the apartment at this time. I wouldn't have to worry about sharing the bathroom or shower. I walk out of my room with my towel, go past the sinks, and into the bathroom. So far, I had been fortunate enough to not have to suffer through any unnecessarily bright lights; I have a blackout curtain for the window in my room.
Unfortunately, The U decided to put the Sun in our bathroom. My head instantly throbbed as I turned the light on. After about five seconds, I concluded that I would not be able last very long with the light on and decided to take my shower in the dark.
I turned the water on and had to adjust the shower head from all the way up and to the right, which is another weird thing my roommate does, to a normal position. Near the end of my shower, I thought I heard something that sounded a lot like a door opening and closing. I disregarded it, however, because usually no one comes back to our apartment around this time. I figured it was coming from the apartment below us. As I turn the water off, I heard a series of noises that kind of sounded like footsteps, but again I didn't pay attention. I reached out for my towel and wrapped it around my shoulders as I began to dry my upper body, and that is when things changed between me and my roommate forever.
Several factors had lead up to this moment. Anything from my roommate deciding to not mumble at all this one time in his life, the fact that The U is a shithole and can't even provide bathroom doors that shut completely (the doorknob doesn't line up with the hole in the frame), my headache, to the weird change in my roommate's schedule can take partial blame. But whatever the factors were or who/what should take the blame, we nevertheless ended up at this moment, with my roommate barging into the bathroom, turning on the light, and standing face-to-face with me, standing soaking wet, squinting and shivering, all the unimportant parts covered with my towel, all the important parts completely exposed.
"Uh.." I said.
"Whoa," he replied.
"What are you doing?"
"What are YOU doing?!"
"sorry"
He closed the door uneasily, walked to his room, and hasn't looked at me since. I frantically dried off, threw some clothes on, and haven't yet figured out a way to make things better. He left me feeling scared, shocked, and shriveled. I left him broken and bewildered.
Looking back on this now, almost a day later, am I happy that this happened? Absolutely not.
But, am I embarrassed? ...Yeah.
But, have I learned anything from this experience? Sure.
But, will I take preventative measures to make sure he never sees me naked again? Well, yeah..
But, will I do the same for any future roommates? Of course I will.
Being "the weird one" is completely relative. Before, it was my roommate, but now it's me. Because even with his constant mumblings to himself and other odd quirks my roommate has, I was still the one who was caught standing soaking wet and naked with the shower curtain open, facing and staring the door in the dark for an unknown amount of time.
And that's what makes me the weird one.
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