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"Living with a jackass" or "How I got my cat"
I got my two bedroom, $2000 a month, NYC apartment 5 days before the first month’s rent was due. If you live in NYC, you think that is cheap. If you live anywhere else, you know that is insane. Anyway, I needed a roommate ASAP. I placed ads on the internet and met several people. I didn’t have much time to show the place, so I wound up living with a 19-year-old girl who I’ll call Britney.
Britney is from Ridgewood, NJ. This means her parents are rich. Britney went to a private high school. This means her parents are rich. My assessment of Britney is that she is spoiled to the point of being dysfunctional. She is lazy, is self-centered, doesn’t clean up after herself, and, in my opinion, is not terribly bright. Other than that, she is ok.
Things were ok at first. I was willing to put up with her mess since she was only staying while she had a summer internship. I was living with a 19-year-old who wasn't used to living on her own, so I had to expect she would leave food out and not do the dishes. It was bearable until in the second week, she got a kitten. Britney is barely able to look after herself, so you can imagine how well she took care of the kitten.
Britney got an 8-week-old kitten from a shelter in NJ. She brings the kitten to the apartment, leaves him water, leaves him cat food (not kitten food), and goes back to NJ for the rest of the weekend. She left the poor kitten all by himself. Even worse, she didn’t leave the kitten something pretty vital for everyone concerned … hello … litter box … this jackass got a kitten but didn’t get a litter box!
As you can imagine, this was a problem for the kitten. First he used his kitten bed since it was enclosed like a litter box and more absorbent than the floor. Britney didn’t bother to clean that up. It became full of cat crap. Then the kitten started using the carpet because he couldn’t use the cat bed anymore.
The first time I asked Britney where the litter box was, she admitted there wasn’t a litter box. I told her that was insane. You must have a litter box. Then I told her to clean up the cat crap on the carpet. Who needs to be told to clean up cat crap? I mean the crap was just sitting there, and she didn’t do anything about it.
The cat continued to crap on the carpet. Britney still only cleaned up when I told her to, and then only when she got around to it. Note that she never cleaned the cat bed, so it was still sitting in her room full of cat crap. When I asked her about the litter box, she said it was under her bed. What kind of freak keeps a litter box under her bed?
5 days after the kitten arrived, he was still crapping on the carpet. I went into her room to see if maybe the litter box was too big. Surprise! There was no litter box under her bed. She had just lied to me because she was too lazy and stupid to get a litter box for her cat.
After a day of emails that went from diplomatic to blunt, she agreed to bring the cat back to the shelter. Then she went back to Jersey for the weekend and left the cat in the apartment. She never bothered to ask me to take care of him. I don’t think the thought ever crossed her mind (or what passes for a mind).
So I went out and got a litter box. I threw out the cat bed and carpet. I bought food for the kitten. Britney was supposed to take the cat back Sunday night. However, over the weekend I became attached to the kitten, so I told her she could keep him if she would take care of him.
Not a chance. The cat escaped for a whole day once, and she didn’t notice or care. I had to run around the apartment building looking for him all night. A neighbor had taken him in, but the neighbor had gone out. When I told her that I’d found the kitten, she didn’t seem to care. The next morning I brought the kitten home from the neighbor after Britney had gone to work. When I called her to ask her where the cat food was so I could feed him, she told me to stay out of her room.
One night I came in and Britney was out, but the kitten was locked in his carrying case. Britney came in 15 minutes later and said that she put the kitten in the case because he had scratched her leg.
In addition to being a slob, an abusive pet owner, and an idiot, she smokes. I told her it was a non-smoking apartment and she smoked anyway. I asked her to stop smoking and she kept smoking. Not only that, she wasn’t even smart enough to hide the evidence. I’d come in and there would be cigarettes butts in the living room. She also left the door unlocked. What kind of a moron leaves an apartment door unlocked on the Lower East Side of Manhattan?
When I asked her for the rent on the first of the month she asked “How come I have to pay you on the first when your rent isn’t due until the 7th?” At 12:01 AM June 2nd, I told her she had 30 days to leave.
Then, she disappeared for the weekend again. I was stressed and depressed. Because I am a sap, I felt bad about kicking her out. I also I had to save the kitten. I was going to bring the kitten to my mom’s and tell her he ran away.
Sunday night, she comes bouncing in and tells me about her weekend down the shore as if we were good buddies. She starts telling me about the house she is renting in September with two unsuspecting schoolmates. Then, after I had been up all night trying to figure out how to save the kitten, she flippantly asks “Are you going to keep the kitten when I leave?” I said I thought that would be for the best. Then we get the punch line. She says “good, because I think I’m going to bring my dog to the house in September and I don’t know if the dog and cat would get along.”
Maybe it’s sick, but I find that hilarious. This jackass, who can’t take care of a cat, wants to get a dog? Poor puppy…
Here is the cat.
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