YSaC, Vol. 491: Wherever I lay my hat …
Travel a lot but still need a bedroom to call home?
If you travel a lot but still need a bedroom to stay in while you are in town? If you answered YES, this is the perfect fit!!
I own and reside in a TWO -BEDROOM/ONE- BATHROOM Condo in [location]. The complex is called [NAME OF COMPLEX] and is located off the cross streets of [location]. There is easy access to TWO METRO STOPS ([two metro stop names]) via bus stop on property. Less than a mile from [location] and walking distance to Shopping Center.
I am looking for a roommate that won’t be around much but still needs a place to call “home” every so often. The room is fully furnished with a full bed, night stand ,dresser, and TV. There is a 2 door closet inside the room also. I have a cat so you cannot be allergic to cats. I like my own space and am used to living alone but the mortgage has gotten to be too much. I’m looking for someone who travels a lot or maybe “lives at their boyfriends” house but mom and dad still think you have your “own” place… I think you get the picture. Utilities include Cable, Wireless Internet, Gas, Electric, Water/Sewer and Trash and would be an additional $50.00 per month. The rent that I am asking is $600 per month although willing to negotiate a tiny bit if you are the right fit.
Please email me through craigslist with your contact information and why you are a good fit for my 1 bedroom rental.
Translation: I’m looking for all the financial benefits of having a roommate, but without the pesky bit about actually having a roommate.
I love how they want the potential not-really-a-roommate to also pay for the utilities they won’t be using while they’re not living there.
I can’t remember who sent me this — sorry, but thanks!
So typical CL! gimme gimme gimme! God bless ’em. And there’s also that little bit of required creepiness: I think you get the picture… wink wink!
No, but really, I do love CL. Did I ever admit that I found a couple of great apartments, furniture, a few (non creepy, nice) dates, a good friend (who later went nuts and broke up with me, but that’s another story), many hours of amusement on “Best Of,” and a few freelance jobs on there? That was a few years ago when I was new and had nothing when I moved to MA. Haven’t been on there lately (except thru this site)! Now, of course, I have a different perspective on the whole thing…
I love crazy internet friends. I met a good friend from the internets in person, got in a car wreck with him, triggered previously buried schizophrenia, and ended up stabbing him in the arm. Best vacation ever.
You don’t have a brother, do you?
Of course I have a brother! But he’s not crazy and stuffs. Or stabby. He mostly just threatens people without doing anything.
I love the adjective “stabby”.
I can see that on a t-shirt:
“I’m not touchy-feely,
I’m more ouchy-stabby”
You can submit that slogan for a tshirt at TypeTees. And yes, I would wear it.
I want the shirt.
I have a slogan on Type Tees for anyone who wants to vote for the T shirt
“If you travel a lot but still need a bedroom to stay in while you are in town? If you answered YES, this is the perfect fit!!”
Ummmm… Is there a question in there, because I don’t see one.
Also, where the hell would you spend $600/ month to rent a room?! I pay less than $500 for my one bedroom cottage. It’s a little house, even with electric, laundry and internet I still pay less.
God I botched that last line. It should read “It’s a little house and even with electric, laundry and internet I still pay less than $600.”
That was my first thought too! I pay $660 a month for a 2 bedroom with a dining room, and that includes laundry and gas (i.e. heat, which is a big deal since I live in the north). Granted, I live in a small city, and this sounds like a more populous place, but for just one room, and have to pay for utilities you hardly use this seems a little steep.
Given the reference to the Metro, it is most likely somewhere around Washington,DC in either Virginia or Maryland.
Seriously? 660 for a 2-BR with gas and laundry? I’d kill for that. I currently have a 1 br with utilities (but not laundry) for 600. It’s nice enough, and fairly well-maintained, but I really would love to have a proper dining room and den-type area.
A shared apartment in my neck of the woods runs around $400-$500, including utilities. The farther you get from town and the colleges, the lower the rent is, around $100 or so less.
Pah, I wish I could live out of town. Alas, I have no car.
Okay, because I like you all and I don’t want you to throw yourselves off your expensive roofs, I will not tell you that my small but gorgeous natural stone, two-story, two-room house (one up, one down) with flower and herb garden and postage-stamp back courtyard costs me $300 a month.
Of course, it is smack dab on a disputed international border and there are riots and bombs from time to time. Not often, but still, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. I suppose that brings the rents down.
Yes, that’s probably it.
Oh, it sounds lovely!
Well, not the bombs and riots thing, but the rest does.
It really is lovely, and I know I am incredibly privileged to have it. And the riots and bombs and suchlike don’t happen all that often and, well… you sort of get used to it.
“What was that?!?”
“Huh? Oh, never mind. Must have been 500 meters away. Nothing to do with me” sort of thing.
I’ve visited relatives in California with the same attitude towards earthquakes. I freaked out when I felt my first tremor, but they were like,”So what? The power didn’t even go out.”
Is your rent fixed in $ or NIS (yes? did I remember the correctly?)? Because fluctuations in exchange rates will affect that sort of thing.
Yeah wouldn’t be surprised if this was in the DC location. My fiancee and I live in a cramped 1 bedroom and pay almost 1,000 a month (plus an extra 80 or so for electricity). And this is a bargain!
Okay, I live in a high-crime neighborhood with bad schools and no jobs, have a 3-bedroom house with a den, 2-car garage, no utilities included for $1700 per month. Right now we are paying it twice a month, because of my husband being laid off since April. We can have cats and birds, but no dogs. Lizard and fish moved in quietly in the night. There is a fully wired shed in the back yard, where the cats spend their evenings and rainy days. Hey, I have a bedroom I can rent out! Must be able to tolerate lots of birds and a lizard. No where else to put them. Must be able to share a bathroom with a 17-year-old male. Must be able to eat elsewhere. Laundry for another $100 a month. 8) I think I may have solved our money problems!
Where the HELL do you people live???? I’m in a suburb of Baltimore, and rent is no less than 800 if you don’t want to live in a crack house. That’s for an apartment. A house will cost you between 1500-3000 depending on the neighborhood. and that’s the affordable stuff. I guess it’s what comes from living in a major metropolitan area. This ad is actually not all that unusual here, either. I’ve read a lot of ads that say, “Rent is 500 for one room. I like my space, so it’s best if you do a lot of stuff out, or spend most of the time at your boyfriends. Half the utilities”.
I did a comparison study, and my area is only 6% less expensive to live in than downtown New York.
Okay, so not everyone lives in an inexpensive neighborhood. I guess I’m used to it, although I still think about my friends living in Dallas. A lovely loft apartment in downtown is costing her 600 with everything…and she holds dance classes in the living room it’s so huge.
I live a mile from downtown Salem (Oregon) and for the area the price I pay is pretty normal, though there are a few areas that are insanely expensive (like a studio for $1,200 near the college here).
I live outside Raleigh (capitol of North Carolina). Downtown rents are high, but once you leave the city it gets pretty rural and rents drop a lot. When I first moved out of my parents home I rented a lot for my trailer and it was $350 including utilities. The downside is that you must have access to a car. There is no mass transit other than limited bus routes downtown. It takes me 45 minutes to an hour to get to work.
They must live in LA. $1200 a month in LA buys you a studio appartment with a shared bathroom.
I pay only slightly more for my mortgage, and that includes taxes and insurance, for a 3 bedroom house.
I think you get the picture. I could rent out two of those rooms and make money in the fantasy world OP lives in.
I think I get the picture.
“If you know what I mean.”
Don’t you mean, “I think you get the picture.”?
I was trying to say I got it and also refer to the ad … and apparently failed.
I’m blaming it on Friday/no coffee.
Take a look at CL for SF Bay area. Rooms start as low as $400–but only if you are a non-smoking, female, vegan or FTM under 25, who loves cats and dogs, and doesn’t have any. Six-hundred is where the male-friendly rooms start, but it’s probably only because the poster is unclear about gender discrimination in housing (you are allowed to specify the gender of people sharing rent, bathroom, and kitchen with you). Eight-hundred is where the sane postings begin, the ones which don’t require special diets or past-times. But the listings go all the way up to 1,300 or even 1,700 to live with Dot-Com people in buildings with new wiring, or in the Castro District. Headlines with phrases like “Sunny Room”, or “Lots of light” tend to later specify “female preferred” in the body text, as if they needed to speak in code.
Well, I travel all the time, but my husband and three kids and two dogs will in the room when I’m on the road. Will that fit? We can only afford $450 a month and since we won’t be using the gas, lights, cable, etc.. you won’t have to charge us for that. Thanks! I’ll call the moving company. How big did you say that room is?
I’m sure there are many professions that would require spending $650 a month on a room you would use for short periods of time. “Prostitute” and “serial killer” , for example.
Why would this idiot go on and on about what a great room it is and how convenient to everything it is, if they don’t expect you to be around much? If you were just looking for an address to placate overly strict parents while you were shacking up with someone, there are cheaper ways to do it.
Not that I know about that sort of thing.
You forgot:
Mobster hit man, drug mule, resistance fighter, renegade policeman, conman, and robot from the future.
Also;
carny,international jewel thief, and hobo
Not to nitpick, but isn’t the point of hobo-dom the fact that they don’t have to pay rent?
Now I have “King of the Road” going through my head …
Maybe it’s for a hobo who’s trying to reform but keeps falling off the wagon? (Which beats falling off a train any day.)
“Reformed Hobos” would be an awsome band name.
*Nitpicks*
Is it hobos or hoboes?
I actually think it looks right both ways …
… dictionary.com says both are right, giving hobos first.
*pedantry continues apace*
Hobos looks better when glitzed out in “Kiss” style lettering. That’s why I omitted the (optional?) e.
I think drug mules just keep going back and forth between clients until a balloon pops. I’m thinking this would be a GREAT place for a resistance movement that meets…oh, say twice a month?
If anyone remembers the crazy Weather Underground movement, they stored their weapons and plans in a place that one of their members rented but didn’t live at!
That’s right – NY brownstone basement. The place blew up (on accident, not a planned detonation) or something, didn’t it?
And Dustin Hoffman lived next door. Don’t ask me why my brain can cough up that info-nugget, but it did.
I don’t remember hearing about it blowing up, but it was raided twice by police…but who knows, they had CRAZY amounts of russian arms and ammunition there. That would be a hideously bad explosion!
Lola: Don’t ask me why my brain can cough up that info-nugget, but it did.
I am Librarian, hear me roar!
I actually had a roommate like that, my very first one. Wow, that was a long time ago. She was dating an Iranian exchange student, and he didn’t want her to move in with him. She had even gone to live in Iran over a summer, and learn all she could about his family and culture. She kept a rolled-up mat behind the couch and slept in the tiny living room. The house had once been a large, single family residence, but had been turned in to four one-bed apartments. Anyway, she found out the guy didn’t want her to move in because he was not being faithful to her. Sigh. She met a much better man and got married soon after that. They played the Star Wars theme at their wedding. So very cool.
I love this story more than is probably healthy.
Possible band name: Forward Hos. Discuss.
could also be ‘congressman’ as a part time roomie.
I love the “you ‘live’ at your boyfriends, but your parents think you have your own place” bit. Yes, I’m going to pay $600 a month to keep up that charade instead of convincing my best friend to keep some clothes at her place and let my ‘rents come over every so often.
If I was out of town as much as this guy hopes for, I’d be saving my $600 for Holiday Inn. I get all the benefits, including not living with this asshat, and a free continental breakfast on top of that!
Or you can get a two bedroom place with your significant other and go with the ever popular “S/he’s gay/straight” defense, depnding on your orientation. Of course, if you’re bi then you’re screwed either way.
No pun intended?
*giggle*
I just noticed that.
I wasn’t thinking, I haven’t had my coffee yet.
Coffee: Making awsome posts possible by not being consumed yet.
*Slurps his coffee*
Guess my awesomeness will be a little less now.
This could totally work, sarajean. You be Chrissy or Janet, and I’ll be Jack.
Also featuring drmk and dan as Mr and Mrs Roper.
Nah, Dan doesn’t look good in mu-mus. (Just emu-mus.)
Hot.
“emu-mus”
I love that!
If you re-read the whole thing and pretend he’s standing there winking at you suggestively every time he uses quotation marks or the word “fit” then it changes the mood of the posting from “slightly creepy” to “Silence of the Lambs.”
I have to go shower now… in bleach… boiling bleach.
*shudders*
Now I’m wondering if the “rental” is a freezer in his basement.
I might have to borrow that boiling bleach.
I have the feeling whoever becomes his room mate will hear the phrase “put the lotion in the basket” quite a lot.
I would so, so love to go through just one day in the innernets without coming across that ‘put the lotion…’ line. it’s everywhere, and it just sends me into paroxysms of shudders. *sigh*
I’ll resist the urge next time just for you.
My God, will someone shut up those Goddamn lambs? What a racket! I can’t even hear myself hunting serial killers over the din. No wonder this place was only $500/month.
My sense of discomfort definitely grew the further I read.
What could make this worse is if it were also the type of ad that I’ve seen on CL where the guy wants someone to be a roommate with benefits.
“When you’re not at your significant other’s who you’re pretending to your parents that you don’t live with, why not enjoy each other’s company? This can be mutually beneficial to both of us [or similar prevaricating redunancy].”
“willing to negotiate a tiny bit if you are the right fit”
If you are never, ever going to be here, I might go as low as $550.00.
Maybe even $500 since then he can rent it to multiple people who will each never be there.
I think I’d be more worried about where exactly he wants you to “fit”
I have a blue conversion van with a back seat that folds down into a bed. I also have a Coleman propane stove and a kerosene heater. It’s all paid for so I can live in it for $0/per month if I want. Hard to beat that.
There’s also the unparalleled feeling that comes from living like Matt Foley. You can’t put a price on that.
Yes, but the CO detector must have cost you something.
You’ll have plenty of time to live in a van down by the river when… you’re living in a van down by the river!
Actually, this doesn’t sound half bad. Where do I send the deposit of some chewing gum and one Homies action figure I found between my seat cushions???
The wh.. cough, cough.. C what?
(Seriously combination CO/smoke detectors are less than $40 at Home Depot. And people would be correct that the kerosene and propane–not to mention a gym membership for shower purposes–would cost something)
Unless you cultivated a fairly communistic view of possessions and found a neighborhood with a weak police presence.
“fairly communistic view of possessions” = no qualms about taking other people’s stuff, w/ or w/o permission
I find this euphemism amusing.
This has all the components of a late-night TV Informercial.
Step 1 – Begin with a question to identify your target audience:
“Travel a lot but still need a bedroom to call home?”
Step 2 – Name off the countless benefits of what you are selling:
“There is easy access to TWO METRO STOPS ([two metro stop names]) via bus stop on property. Less than a mile from [location] and walking distance to Shopping Center.”
Step 3 – Once you have ’em hooked, speak in a low, speedy tone of all the disclaimers and negative aspects of said item:
“I have a cat so you cannot be allergic to cats. I like my own space and am used to living alone but the mortgage has gotten to be too much. I’m looking for someone who travels a lot or maybe “lives at their boyfriends” house but mom and dad still think you have your “own” place… I think you get the picture. Utilities include Cable, Wireless Internet, Gas, Electric, Water/Sewer and Trash and would be an additional $50.00 per month.”
Step 4 – Make it seem like a bargain by offering some kind of negotiating, less-than-asking price deal:
“The rent that I am asking is $600 per month although willing to negotiate a tiny bit if you are the right fit.”
$599.99?
Billy Mays, God rest his soul, would be proud.
I’m picturing it in the voice of the Slap Chop guy. It is quite amusing.
why did you do that sarajean? now I’m just picturing the slap chop guy and the image wont go away.
I will have my revenge, just you wait till I come up with a good plan. No seriously, wait, it may take a while.
I hear the MicroMachines guy (the one that talked really really really fast)
OMG… I think I’m getting the picture….this sounds exactly like the street where I live. I think this is one of my neighbors.
How about if I “live at my boyfriends” house but my new boyfriend will think I have my “own” place… ?
You and I sound like a super FIT but I have one teensy request. In addition to the bed, dresser, night stand and TV, could I please be supplied with a bale of hay and about 20 feet of heavy duty chain? So looking forward to a place I can call “home”!!!!!
I hope you’re not allergic to goats or leather.
I think you get the picture.
*wink wink*
KTHNX
“I hope you’re not allergic to goats or leather.”
I want THIS on a T-shirt!
I realize that we come to YSaC to bury lame posts, not to praise them, but to me this almost sounds like a reasonable deal.
The economics of our moment mean that the poster needs to get a little income from the otherwise underutilized guest room. It’s not a lot of space, and the poster would rather have the place to him- or herself, but times are tough. Rent’s not cheap in major metro areas, especially not with easy access to mass transit, so offering a reasonable price for a pied-a-terre seems like a decent strategy.
As long as this would-be landlord isn’t actually trying to restrict the amount of time you’d spend in the bedroom you’re renting, but just hoping to find a tenant who wouldn’t use the place much, it seems like a nice arrangement for everyone.
Admittedly, the whole “deceive your parents” angle is potentially kind of creepy, but I could also imagine that written in a non-predatory way by a recently post-college young woman who might have wished for such a cheap “pretend apartment” herself.
Plus, the writer’s literate. I dunno. I’m not feeling the snark on this one.
…and just to add a little biography to my general buzzkillery, let me add that I was totally a tenant like this during the first year and a half of my first professor job. Since I was working 85 miles from where my S.O. lived, and I only taught two days a week, I rented a place near school that I used only a couple of nights a week.
Since it was in the NY metro area and not a total dump, but the only nice place I saw on my one trip down to scope things out, I paid $1200/month for a two-bedroom place I really only needed one of the bedrooms in. (It wasn’t overly expensive for the area, either.) The renting situation outlined in this post might have worked out nicely for me.
As it turned out, I needed the place even less than I thought, and eventually I moved out and just started driving 85 miles each way, through the Bronx and Queens, every day that I worked. I am glad I don’t have that job any more.
Gosh George Bailey, admit it, it’s the upcoming holidays that’s made you go soft, isn’t it?
Totally get your drift, but in defense of Worldwide Snarkiness, this ad just smidge-ly crossed over into the Suckland realm based on its wordage.
The poster, perhaps unintentially, came off as sounding as if they wanted a whole lot for nothing; but if they weren’t careful might get a whole lot of something they weren’t prepared for.
The icing on the cake was the suggestion that they were quite willing to go along with (or suggest) an outright deception and bring Mr./Ms. Liar, Liar Pants on Fire into their home.
I’d tag this one: Potential Monkey’s Paw
I do think this “landlord” goes over to the Suckland realm. If I gotta take a bus to the subway, I wouldn’t call that “easy access”. Easy access is I walk a block or two. Same with the shopping center. It’s “less than a mile” away. Not half a mile, mind you, or three quarters of a mile, but “less than a mile”, which makes me think it’s awful damn close to one mile away, and I wouldn’t call that walking distance even if I’m only buying one Ramen Noodle package at a time. Which I have done. Sometimes they’re only 12 for a dollar.
Isaac, I totally get what you’re saying, and I know that some people do have arrangements like this. When both people have reasonable expectations, it can work really well.
The reason I posted it was because I *do* get the feeling that if you had the nerve to utilize the bedroom you’re renting for more than this person thought was appropriate — which to me sounds like “never” — they would get annoyed and passive-aggressive.
I think it was the “I want the money that a roommate can provide me, but not the roommate” sense of entitlement that set it off for me. That, and the “pay for half of the utilities you’re not using” thing.
It’s not what is being offered, but the way they are offering it. Especially the whole “Rent the room to fool your parents” angle. Definitely YSaC material.
Do you telecommute? I need someone who wants to share a ride to work, but who won’t actually inconvenience me with their presence in my car. You’ll pay for half of the gas for me to drive to work, plus occasional stops at Burger King. Maybe you have a mistress, and your wife thinks you’re at work all day… I think you get the picture.
surely that’s just offering to be an alibi? Actually though, that might get you some takers, get yourself over to CL now and post it.
I wonder what someone would charge to rent me just their bathroom on an infrequent basis. I have a very long commute home.
We actually had that roommate! no shiz.
This preppy dude was shacking up with his prudey girlfriend in the city and her parents obviously were not hip on that. Howard, yes his name really was Howard, paid us rent, on time and in full, every month just so he could bring his toothbrush and aftershave over when his in-laws came in to town. Twice in the year he ‘lived’ with us. He was the best roommate ever and we had a free guest room. win win.
Hey, first time here. I have to admit, this kind of reminds me of where I used to live. My live-in landlord was very overbearing, and while he never required us to spend less time at home, he had this habit of standing in common areas and glaring at anyone who dared use the space. The funny thing is, I’m pretty sure I had 3-5 roommates, but they all found ways of taking extended business trips, staying at their boyfriends’ houses for weeks at a time, etc. He only charged me $595/month, which was a really decent price for the area of Los Angeles I was in.
Hi new kid!
*waves*
Don’t worry, if it’s your first time we’ll be gentle.
*pokes the new kid with sticks*
*offers new kid a band-aid for the poked places*
*offers new kid the special brownie*
we have “special” brownies? Why has no-one told me this before? and where’s mine?
*gives dev several special brownies*
I’ve never actually had special brownies, unless you call my sisters quadruple chocolate ones “special”. I was raised with that ever present “if you do something illegal, you WILL get caught” fear.
Those brownies sure do look good, though. Are they still warm???
mmmm, these will go very nicely with the Cabernet, thank you
*offers new kid seat at porker table*
While my fiance still lived in Washington he had roommates who were kind of like this. According to them he wasn’t supposed to have guests, even for an hour or two because they had dogs that were “sensitive.” Luckily for me I happen to be ninja-esq in my quietness and managed to stay there for an entire month with out them knowing. His landlord knew I was there and had no problem with it, he just said as long as I didn’t destroy the house I was free to be there for as long as I wanted and if the roommates had a problem to tell them to “shove it.”
I totally want to know more about the sensitive dogs. Sensitive to what? I’m betting it was just the owners’ way of being fascist about your fiance’s social life (I lived with one of those, and in the end we all hated her, which was kind of great, because she would try to stir things up and pit three of us against one of the others … in the end she got what she wanted, but she was the one we were all against! anyway …). If they weren’t the landlords, then how the hell did they think they could get away with it? I’ve lived and worked with people who do stuff like that just because they can, and hate those assholes …
/rant
It wasn’t the owner of the house who was being a jerk, it was a couple who rented part of the house. The owner had no problem with me being there but in order to keep the couple from going crazy on my fiance (as they had on a previous tennant) he suggested I keep quiet, which was fine.
The dogs “had allergies,” were “sensitive to sound” and “not friendly to new people.” I met the dogs once (while helping him move) and they both loved me instantly.
Their self-proclaimed “authority” to do this came from them paying more in rent. The reson they paid more was because they were the only ones with access to the garage, a majority of the basement and had a room three times the size of his. They had all this by choice, and my fiance offered to pay more just so I could visit. He even gave them free cable and internet since he got a discounted price from Comcast for being an employee but they were still jerks and insisted that I was forbidden.
Maybe it made you more attractive, since you were forbidden 😉
With my less that cat-like reflexes, I would have been found in about two minutes. Kudos on lasting so long.
My sister has a dog that’s “sensitive”, she takes an instant dislike to anyone with dark skin (they think she might have been abused before they found her) but with everyone else she’s fine. (for a racist dog, she’s very sweet)
If the dogs met you and liked you, I don’t see what the problem would be, it sounds more like these room mates were “not friendly to new people”. And also assholes.
Good on you for staying there anyway, then. Those people sound like they have something else coming to them.
My friend has had the bad fortune of living with several people like that…the first set of “friends” kicked her out because she was “too untidy” (she’s a compulsive cleaner), but once she left, she found out it was because one of the guys kept telling the girls that my friend’s black boyfriend would rape them. Gotta love them country folk. Or not.
EDIT: Sarajean, that’s pretty fascinating about the dog! My boyfriend’s mom has a husky that’s racist and has been all of her 14 years…she never has had a bad experience with anyone who wasn’t white! I wonder if your dog is just weird like that.
Your sister’s dog, rather. Stupid edit system just randomly stopped working for me.
She was in pretty sad shape when they found her, it’s a fair bet someone somewhere did something unpleasant to her.
I had a customer ask me (a short, round, white girl with the imposing presence of a marshmallow Peep) to walk her to her car because she was afraid “that boy” would “get” her. “That boy” was my then (black) boyfriend who had stopped by to see me.
The roommates were total douche nozzels and I’m glad I stayed there. Well those two were, there was a third roommate, who knew I was there, and he was great. We got wasted together one night while the couple was at work and even while drunk I was still undetected, which is suprising since I am the biggest clutz in the world.
“douche nozzles”
*giggle*
I’m going to add that to my mental book of swears to use while driving.
forgive my crudeness, but my favorite swear to use while driving is “fucknugget”. I learned it from a 10-year-old on XBox Live.
Oooh, that’s going in the book, too!
I learned most of the english swears I know now from my dear old Mom. She can curse like a sailor on shore leave. I was the only kid in my kindergarden class who got time-outs for swearing. She’s also the one who gave me the endearing nickname “Smartass”.
My parents pretty much never swore around me…my mom went through a phase where she kept saying “ass”, though. They swore on the phone and sometimes around each other, and I would swear around my friends and they could hear it, but we weren’t allowed to swear at each other.
Consequently, I now swear at my boyfriend like the world is going to end if I don’t.
I have to constantly censor myself at work so I don’t go all George Carlin on someone. Between work and living with my sister and her three kids, pretty much the only time I can swear out loud is in the car.
I think we need a forum topic for our favorite swears, I have a few good ones in my arsenal.
My mom’s all restrained and churchy, my dad almost as much. You can get away with the odd hell/shit/damn as long as you mean it – but no casual swearing, for some reason. And NO F-bombs. The time my dad detonated one *insert stock Hiroshima footage here* I knew it was serious and got out of the room in a hot second (it wasn’t directed at me, so I was free to leave). The only time in my life I ever heard my mother say goddamnit was when she was teaching me how to drive. And how to drive a stick. Simultaneously.
Me? I would make sailors/teamsters/truckers blush. I just employ it only when there aren’t children/old people/churchy types (parents in last two categories) around who are going to repeat it/freak out. And I enjoy being creative. I also enjoy international cursing for variety. 🙂
Sorry to go so OT. I have to keep it in at work, obs, so if I can vent, I c*nting well will. 😉
Jami – I just opened it, so share away.
My ex-fiancee’s elderly father used to curse about his neighbors of 50+ years as “g*dd*mn f*ckos”, which would send me into fits of silent giggling, where I would have to leave the room to regain my composure.
When I relayed this story to a friend, she immediately changed the name associated with her boss’s phone number on her cell phone to “F*cko.”
My mom is 75. The only time I have ever heard her swear was when the Christmas tree fell over on Christmas eve and she dropped the s-bomb. That’s by far my fondest Christmas memory.
My mom is also “churchy” as you say, Lola, and I was raised believing that curse words were a sign of an ignorant mind who could not express themselves with thought and composure. If someone let one out near me, I would give them a long haughty look and do my signature move…the raising of one, and only one, eyebrow.
My parents did cuss when they regularly screamed at me, but that just solidified my opinion.
My ex changed my opinion, though. He uses profanity for humorous shock value, and is a master at it. And I confess, I find my own self hilarious when I let loose with things that would make him blush. So now I have a vocabulary that would rival the saltiest sailor.
One of my favorite new words came from Jami over at Datewrecks. She said one day that she’s a bit of a c*nt. She said she’s also cantankerous. “So I guess I’m c%ntankerous”. Favorite word ever now.
This ad is the essence of the room for rent section of CL. So glad I finally found a roommate…. Dealing with these sorts of people was ridiculous.
OK, I’m posting this for a bad time of year for students coming up to the end of the year (me being a grad student who can’t devotedly follow every comment as she did in her post-undergrad career) . So forgive me if something similar to this statement has already been made.
Usually I LOVE this site and totally agree with it. But there are a lot of people who travel many times a month for business who need these kinds of places. Granted, this one is asking a little much, both on the rent and utilities sides. Depending on the place (and the person’s business/willingness to get away from their families, though, this could be doable).
At first, with all the brackets, I thought the outrageous thing was that it was a bot site doing generalizations…no, it wasn’t…it was the moderators!
Pilots often have to fly to far-off places that they cannot connect to/from their home airports in short amount of times. They frequently rent places like this and split the rent so they can have a place to crash when they’re in town…often on short notice. It very often ends up being cheaper by the month than getting hotel rooms through the airlines.
I’m only speaking from the perspective of having a dad commutes through several states to fly for his airline, but can see how a business person who has to travel out of town a lot of the time might need the same kind of service. Depending on the town, it might be a deal.
Yes, you are all probably at the moment thinking of the snarky message you will send about how my father (or anyone who needs this service) is a cheating whore getting away with something.
Sorry to disappoint! Happy Thanksgiving, and may you all find your (true) homes for the holiday!
Schmeh, my uncle was a pilot and only had one place. He almost always went too many places to make more than one practical. Of course, he flew regional flights for United in several different parts of the US, so I guess that’s not the typical commercial pilot. I can see it making sense for someone who flies, say, O’Hare to another major airport many times a month.
With all the redacted [location]s and [NAME OF COMPLEX]es, I thought this was another spambot post, a la the [Female Trait 1] posts.
Of course, they want roommate MAN or WOMAN who is never home because s/he’s always riding his/her HARLEY DAVIDSON MOTORCYCLE to see AIROSMITH with his/her dog MIFFY. But s/he still needs to pay rent.
I am so highly amused by all the comments! great reading…and my friends actually thought i wrote that ad..for shame! i need a roommie and all, but not to that tune!
Best part for me was the “1 bedroom” part at the very end… ahahaha.