No matter where you are living next year, there is one feature of college life that you will not part with: living with other people. Whether it be a roommate or a neighbor, the biggest uncertainty when moving into a new place is what the chemistry is going to be like with your fellow inhabitants. Some people may find the people they live with to be their best friends but for many that will not be the case. No matter what happens, remember that your living experience next year (probably) won’t be as bad as some of the stories listed below!

My roommate sophomore year was always super nice to me, giving me advice in terms of classes and what not. We met for the first time in our Calculus class, both without roommates, and for some reason the topic got to accommodation so we made the impulsive decision to live with each other.

We had a great thing going until one day I went to Falafel King with a friend and reached for my wallet. To my surprise, all three of my $20 bills were gone; I was sure I had them in there because I specifically remember two of the bills having this weird black ink stain on the top right corner. Ashamed and disappointed, I walked back to the room with both my wallet and stomach completely empty.

My roommate consoled me and advised me to go to the D.U.C. but cut short her lecture as she was beckoned by her dance club to attend a meeting. As she walked out of the room, she accidentally dropped her wallet. To my surprise, I caught a glimpse of a corner of one of her notes and in a moment of breathlessness I saw the same black ink stain present on my $20 bills that had gone missing. I was absolutely livid. After an exchange of expletives, I contacted my Complex Director who promptly separated me from my roommate, adding that this was not the first time she was caught stealing.

Moral of the story: attempt even the most rudimentary of background checks on people before agreeing to live with them.

Anecdote by pen-name Steal Good Ink

Okay, so when I moved in with my new roommate (let’s call him James), he informed me that he had a “flute playing” habit and that he liked to keep a few pets on him (stating that he could not possibly live without his favorite pet, Donny). Now I am aware that pets are against the rules, but when I looked into the loving, deep brown eyes of his pet mouse, I was instantly endeared and agreed to his requests. I even helped him feed the mouse as it lay inside James’s specifically designed mouse tank, giving Donny a generous helping of cheese and vegetables for a hearty meal. At this point, I loved my roommate and his pet and although the songs he played on his flute were kind of creepy, I didn’t really think too much of it at the time.

That was, until, exactly fourteen days after we had moved together. I was fast asleep, until I heard the faint sound of James’s flute at about 3 a.m. I put on my glasses and asked him what was going on, when to my surprise I witnessed a strange basket in the middle of the room. James would not respond to my pestering, his eyes fixated on the basket and his fingers jittering around the holes of his flute quicker than I could keep up with. To my shock and horror, I saw the lid of the basket slowly rise up. I watched in horror as, with the crescendo of the eerie flute melody, all 15 feet of a king cobra slowly exit the confines of the basket. In my fear, I yelled at James insisting that he stop, but to no avail.

“Hey roomie, meet Donny!” said James casually, quickly taking his mouth off the flute. In a burst of quick movement, James reached his hand into the mouse tank and flung the mammal that lay inside resting into the vicinity of the terrifying king cobra. In a matter of seconds, the cobra had devoured all of the innocent rodent and quickly began to swallow it, the floor of the room sullied by the viscera of the bitten mouse. There was nothing left of it. I began to weep, and wept until the sun came out, my sadness enveloped by the haunting tune of that wicked flute.


Needless to say, I packed my things and quickly applied for a room transfer. Who knows what James would have fed that snake now that the mouse was gone? Moral of the story: try and gauge if your roommate is completely insane before you two begin to live with each other.

Anecdote by pen-name Let’s get sNaked

I was in my room as per usual but the moment I went out, this guy kept shouting at me as I was listening to some music. I was getting kind of creeped out, especially when he started crying as I was eating my dinner. Sometimes the people you live around can be really weird.

Anecdote by Donny the Snake

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Associate Editor | avpraka@emory.edu
Aditya Prakash (20C) is from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, pursuing a double major in neuroscience and behavioral biology and philosophy. He enjoys playing 16-bit indie games and arguing for his pronunciation of the word schedule. He half-jokingly aims to one day join The Onion or Clickhole, but until then he will continue to serve the Wheel.