Winning the Bonus Round

The December following my unfortunate breakup with the ex whom Tom had dubbed the "Granola-Eating Assclown," I moved into a tiny one-bedroom apartment next to Alewife, just over the Arlington town line. It was a rushed job and, in retrospect, a downright shitty apartment for the price. Fortunately, at the time, I had few possessions to my name, and a much greater desire to live unburdened by the dipshittery of cohabitants. Of course, this marked the beginning of a period in my life during which I learned to expect Tom as a regular visitor, invited or otherwise, and rarely with advance courtesies, much like my Aunt Flo, though at about 31 times the frequency.

It began scant days after my moving in, conveniently right after the weekend Tom had "taken me shopping" and convinced me to drop hundreds of dollars into "necessities" for my new home (among said "necessities" were a copper fire bowl and an abomination of a cheap pressboard wine bar, along with several bottles of fine vintage with which to fill said bar). It was only after the fact that I noticed that he had absconded with my extra household key and made a copy for himself. Perhaps it was an overdose of gratitude for his emotional support at the time that caused me to turn a blind eye to this otherwise suspicious behavior, which I would learn much farther down the line was the first major sign of dealings with a professional mooch.

However, during the months in between my moving in and my learning that lesson, I had the privilege of Tom's company on a near-daily basis. My apartment quickly became a convenient flophouse and showering facility a mere 30 minutes away from his place of employment (the importance of which will become very apparent further in this tale). While convenient for him for many reasons, amongst which was the luxury of sleeping in and taking the T into work most days, this somewhat non-consensual arrangement became something of a giant pain in the ass for me, mostly by way of lost privacy. Years later, I still wonder what brand of temporary insanity allowed me to slide down that slippery slope into unwilling cohabitation. Tom's ever-bumbling but well-meaning personality certainly made it seem as though I had nothing major to complain about at the time, at least until my first wake-up call came one chilly New England eve in the winter of '06.

I arrived home from work to have my already-dismal post-work disposition further marred by the presence of a pair of shit-colored size 10s, caked in snow, gently melting in the middle of my carpeted foyer. Tom was "home" and had clearly availed himself of my facilities. As I began to untie my boots, I was greeted by the presence of a small slinking cat, silently picking her way through the many shoes lining the edge of the foyer.

"Hi Buttberry!" I exclaimed as I reached out to pet her little black head. Blackberry scowled and withdrew in response. Settling in on her haunches, she narrowed her eyes and cast a disdainful look past my shoulder at the hallway.

"Well, fine then," I said. "Be a little shit."

It was not until I had put my shoes aside in a corner of my tiny foyer that I spied, with my little eye, a mysterious knotted Shaw's plastic bag containing a payload of unknown origin sitting in my back hallway next to the kitty's litterbox. The source of kitty's consternation became readily apparent.

Confusion at the appearance of this bag quickly turned to concern, as I noticed that the bag itself seemed to emit a halo of heat in a fashion not wholly unlike that of steam as it rested serenely upon the floor. It should be noted that my apartment shared the same insulating qualities as those of an inflatable bounce-house in the middle of a chilly New England winter; thus, the appearance of steam resulting from breath and body heat was not at all an uncommon occurrence. Nevertheless, the thought of something *else* emitting body heat from a plastic bag bothered me deeply. Very deeply, indeed.

"Tom?" I inquired, as I poked my head into the bedroom. There, I found Tom lying under the covers of my bed in his boxers, twiddling away on my laptop at some World of Warcraft campaign. His hair was freshly washed and smelled unusually inoffensive, almost as though the very sins against hygiene he'd committed over the years had been cleansed from his body through vigorous ablution involving much ceremony and scrubbing.

"Tom... what's in that plastic bag next to Blackberry's litterbox?"

"Oh honey," he cried, "it was terrible! I was having a farting contest with Matt at work while we were walking back to the hospital... and I won the bonus round."

To say that I was only partially surprised by this explanation was perhaps a sign that I'd been living with Tom for far too long already.

"At first we kept going back and forth, and then I felt a mean one brewing, so I told Matt and he said 'do it! Do it!' so I did, and then I won the bonus round while we were walking down the street."

"So Tom, you... forced so hard you shit a little, is essentially what you're saying. I think we've all been there... You only pooped yourself a little, right? I mean, we can't be talking about a whole loaf here. Couldn't you just throw your underwear away and call it a day?"

"No, it was like tar! It ran down the back of my legs and all the way into my socks. It was runny and terrible! I threw away the socks and underpants... they couldn't be saved. Luckily I had a pair of spare jeans in my work locker!"

My imagination went to all the places I'm sure yours, dear reader, is going right now. An image formed in my mind, of Tom polluting his britches on the streets of Brigham Circle, waddling back to the office, trousers completely browned, cleaning up with paper towels in a men's room at Brigham and Women's Hospital, carefully bagging up his pant-pudding in a bag stolen from Shaw's, marinating in his own special brand of A-1 for a half hour ride on the T, and socklessly trudging through the snow and up the stairs to my apartment to avail himself of a hot shower. This image was followed by questions. If it was that bad, why didn't he just throw ALL the clothes away? He works at a hospital, why didn't he just jump into one of the chemi-showers there and then go home? What does a man eat to make shit the consistency of tar? Most important of all, was the question "what did he expect to DO with the soiled jeans he'd saved?"

"I don't have a washing machine, Tom. You KNOW that." This statement was patently true, though had by no means been a deterrent to Tom leaving his filthy clothing strewn about my apartment in the past. Nevertheless, hope springs eternal when one is faced with the prospect of shittybritches tied in a bag sitting in one's back hallway.

"I know, I know. Don't worry, I'll take them back to my mom's and wash them tomorrow."

Surely, I should have objected, citing the 20 some odd lbs of dirty laundry Tom had already left in my apartment under the guise of "taking them back to his mom's to wash." Contemplating my options, I wondered if there was some special circle of Hell saved for those who sent their boyfriends to the laundromat to put a corn-laden pantload into one of the machines along with some Tide. Fishing around in my pockets for quarters, I weighed the prospect of fiery eternity against enduring a bag of bum gravy sitting in my back hallway for god-knows-how-long. Divine providence was determined to save my soul for another day, as I found no more than a dime and two paperclips in my pockets and resigned myself to believing the falsehoods falling out of Tom's mouth. No change, no laundromat, no Hell.

"Okay. You had BETTER make sure you go home tomorrow. You REALLY need to just GO HOME."

The winter of Tom turned to the spring of Tom, and spring at last to summer, during which time I was at last free from my 6 month lease on my igloo of an apartment. The move out turned out to be a small disaster, though the manpower and dedication of friends proved far stronger than any adversity furniture could throw our way.

"It's looking good," my friend Eric said as we finished up the final sweep, "I think we got everything."

"That's awesome," I replied. "I DEFINITELY owe you a beer for this."

"Oh, and by the way," Eric added, hefting the weight of an oddly familiar Shaw's bag clutched in his right hand, "what's in here?"

"Ah, that would be Tom's jeans, from the time he shit himself last winter while having a farting contest with his coworker, Matt."

"..."

Silence passed between the two of us as the bag landed with an audible wet plop against the freshly mopped hardwood floor. Abandoned in that empty room, we never spoke of it again.