Homeless Depot

I have a new roommate - I don’t know what he looks like, but the police have a partial fingerprint, and, should we occasion to meet again, I will beat the crusties off his soiled, house-squatting ass. Yes, a homeless bum was squatting in my apartment, and, strangely, he is the best roommate I have ever had.

Settle in for this sparkling gem of absurdity, kids, the likes of which I, in my long history of shady associations, questionable life choices, and less-than-habitable dwellings, have never encountered.

I arrived home from a two-week bender in New Orleans, Las Vegas, and San Francisco last night. Exhausted and strung out, I wanted nothing more than to settle down in front of a Romanian porno and blend up a quick pre-bedtime dong malt parfait, before lapsing into a 24-hour coma on my own bed. Little did I know, my bed was already occupied – along with the rest of my apartment. The front door was chained shut from the inside, and when I opened it, I saw someone scamper past on their way to the back stairway. It’s all well and good to dream about being Charles Bronson in these situations – kicking down the door and snatching the intruder by his nappy roots, then beating him to the edge of death until the cops show – but when you’re actually faced with the situation of some random crazy fuck breaking into your home, you come to the realization that nothing in your house is worth being stabbed in the face with a white-hot crack pipe.

I called the cops, and explained as calmly and Caucasian as possible, that someone was in my home, and they needed to come over and start blasting caps in people’s asses. Three and a half minutes later, the cops arrived, kicked in my door, and searched my apartment for this motherfucker, but he had already escaped. According to a neighbors, they had seen lights on in my apartment for over a week, despite the fact that I hadn’t been for two weeks. It seems ole’ Smokey McSquat-a-lot decided to make himself comfortable in my absence.

Fucking crazy, right? Wait, here’s the weird part: He cleaned and redecorated my apartment.

No shit. My living room furniture was entirely re-arranged – he shuffled the couches and end tables. He removed art from the walls and replaced it with random posters. He switched out my custom-painted light switch plates with conservative, standard issue off-white ones. He moved my entire entertainment center (TV, DVD player, CD shuffler, speakers) and re-connected them in a different order, and on a different side of the room.

On to my bedroom, he picked all my clothes up off the floor and stacked them in my closet, neatly folded. He also graciously stacked and ordered my books, bagged up my garbage, cleaned my kitchen countertop, and hung up my wet towels to dry. Cu-fucking-ckoo! I don’t know what this guy expected me to say when I finally came home.

“What the fuck! Who the fuck are you? I’m calling the—hey, the place looks GREAT! Wanna be my roomie?”

Obviously, this guy was wackier than tits on toast, and had he not destroyed all my DVDs, CDs, and all my personal stuff like pictures and newspaper clippings, I might’ve believed it was all some elaborate prank by a friend. But not even one of my lowly, prank-happy associates would go so low as to destroy all my personal items and my prized Chupacabra statue. Also, the police found empty packs of Newports and bottles of Cisco Red strewn all over the place – again, my friends are lowly, but at least they can afford nicer booze.

No, this was definitely a product of one screwed up, tweaked out, homeless squatter mind. Even the cops were a little taken aback by the sheer ridiculousness of his actions. Alas, though they found a couple partial fingerprints and I’ve re-secured the backdoor through which the Martha Stewart of the Hobo Set wormed his way, I’m gettin’ the hell out of this shithole apartment. Today, I moved everything that he hadn’t stolen, demolished, or contaminated with his filthy bum juices, leaving me with about five pairs of pants, thirty t-shirts, a couple jackets, two pairs of underwear, and the socks on my feet. Everything else was trashed because either A) it was his nasty bum-clothing, B) it was touched by him or stacked with his clothes, or C) I couldn’t tell if they were my clothes or his.

I’m carrying a pretty light load right now – I can damn near fit everything I own into one midsized SUV. Maybe that’s a blessing. Maybe it’s time to walk the earth, Kung-Fu style – live in different cities, meet different people, and be arrested in new and exciting jurisdictions. Maybe.

All I know for sure, however, is if anyone in Jersey sees a crusty vagrant bum wandering the streets in an AC/DC t-shirt, contact me for your big reward.