episode 76: the roommate

It’s Sunday. I’m washing dishes to the tune of Wolf Parade. Forgive me hipsters for I know it’s old.

Each dish reminds me of the new roommate. He’s a friend of the boyfriend but someone I’ve gotten to know through various chats at Parisienne on hot afternoons such like today. He’s occupying the extra bedroom “just for 6 weeks or so”. He’s a doctor so he often has duty which means he’s gone for over 36 hours and has great ridiculous gory stories to tell.

Last night he came home and wanted to cook. This is someone who has never been inside a kitchen, and he is not exaggerating. He is set on making some sort of milk soup he saw on tv. It’s an improvement over his semi-regular showing up at 8:30 asking what’s for dinner? The milk goes into a frying pan along with oats. Then he adds some canned pineapple chunks and dates. It’s a take on something I had just before Ramadan but with the fruit, it actually tastes pretty good. I have a few bites and I consider making my oatmeal with hot milk. And possibly dates.

He was going to stir the hot milk with one of the various chop sticks we have. He stirred hesitantly for a bit before I got him a wooden spoon. He put the chopstick with milk on it back in the drawer. I took it out. I washed it this morning.

Once he “washed” the glasses from our morning smoothie breakfast. He rinsed them and went to put them back in the cupboard. I suggested he let them dry first. “Where?” he asked with the bright blue dry rack directly in front of him.

He and his wife were laughing because the other day they came home and tried to boil eggs. It took them an hour and they used five eggs in the process. I smiled but really I was thinking, “there goes our Sunday morning breakfast.” And really how could I not know? There were egg shells everywhere. And cleaning that pot was tough - full of formerly foamy cooked egg.

And with each dish, I think how long it’s been since I’ve lived with a roommate. How the boyfriend isn’t a roommate because we’re the same person. How much I love him.