DumbFunnery

Private Liberal Arts College

August 14 – I move in. The apartment smells slightly of gasoline. I check the oven and turn it off and on and then off again. This makes me feel better.

August 19 – The first gathering of many people at the apartment happens. People complain of the extreme heat, so the air conditioner is turned on. I begin to worry about the cost of the electricity bill.

August 20 – I complain of extreme pain and get prescribed valium. I sell this at twice the cost I got it for. I keep the apartment at seventy-five degrees, and live like a king.

September 3 – The temperature is cooler due to stormy weather. People come over for a party. The cops arrive, I worry and swallow all my remaining valium, forgetting that I own the valium legally but am selling it illegally.

September 4 – I wake up covered in blood and empty bottles of beer. I celebrate Labor Day.

September 16 – My parents will arrive the next day for a visit. I clean, hang posters, make my bed and light candles to remove the odd smell – all in an attempt to make the apartment feel “homey” and therefore acceptable for my mom.

September 17 – I wake up in the bathtub, with a spilled container of Clorox beside me. I remember I had cleaned a lot the previous day and forgotten to eat. I worry that sleeping in a bathtub smelling Clorox through the night may not be good. The clean, decorated apartment seems foreign to me and makes me miss home. I take down the posters. My parents arrive and my mom comments on my, “barren, hospital smelling” apartment. I sleep at the hotel with them.

September 20 – I return to the apartment, my parents having left. I open all the windows and leave to sleep at a friends place for a while.

September 23 – I get drunk at a party and complain about dorm life and roommates and talk about how it’d be nice if I had an apartment. A freshman lets me sleep at her house because she feels bad for me.

September 24 – The freshman’s mom cooks pot roast. I learn the freshman’s name is Becky.

September 27 – I find that the spilled Clorox has been completely removed. I also find roughly four hundred dead ants where the Clorox had been. I debate the idea of training an army of ants to first eat Clorox, and then strategically go throughout my apartment dying all over to clean it.

October 2 – I meet my landlord. He tells me to see a therapist about my “ego” issues. After much self-inspection (physically and mentally), I do.

October 7 – I fall in love with my psychologist. In session I tell her she’s fired, and then ask her on a date. She tells me I’m self-centered and only like her because all she does is listen to me talk about myself. I wonder what happened to the woman I fell in love with. I tell her she’s ugly.

October 8 – I yell at my landlord for the catastrophe of the psychologist experience. I tell him he took part in breaking my heart and soul. He gives me beer.

October 17 – I eat Pakistani food, while watching “Feivel Goes West.” I find the irony overwhelming, even though there is none, and go to sleep sad.

October 22 – I get drunk and go to a home football game. I see my former psychologist/love of my life and I punch the man she is with and run back to my apartment crying.

October 27 – My apartment begins to smell like a dentists’ office. This worries me. I begin to brush my teeth eight times a day, having convinced myself that is my dentist’s favorite number and that he will appreciate my equal love of the number eight.

November 2 – I advertise for a roommate, with no intention to get one. I interview five people who called, telling each one various things I do not like about them before saying I don’t actually need a roommate.

November 4 – Inspired by the fun of my fake roommate request and interviews, I post fliers about a roommate being needed for the most amazing apartment possible, and the best price imaginable. I use my ex-girlfriend’s number as the one to call if interested.

November 7 – I buy a telescope intending to study the ants in my apartment. I return home and begin my studies. I write a paper on it called, “Squishing Ants with a Telescope.” It is not received with the praise I’d envisioned by the head of the biology department. I submit it to a philosophy professor and it is immediately published as, “the most honest observation of human nature recorded since David Hume.”

November 14 – I order two pizzas for delivery, and after they arrive I spend the day working on dance routines to every song from “Fantasia.” I vomit twice.

November 29 – I form a “Communist Club” and have the inaugural meeting at my apartment. After the meeting we go to eat at a steak house.

December 4 – During finals preparation time I learn to juggle in theory. It turns out all you do is toss various items in the air without dropping them. I theoretically juggle torches and am theoretically rushed to the hospital. I put on bandages.

December 12 – Despite the burn wounds (I have by now begun to pretend the bandages I put on are for a real purpose), I pass all my finals.

December 15 – The neighbors below me move out. One of them sees me on his way out and yells, “blow me!” I yell, “no, you were below me!” I get a black eye.

January 17 – I move back in. I clean the apartment religiously. It stinks of incense.

January 23 – I steal police tape and block off my building.

January 24 – The police figure it out. The neighbors return.

February 2 – I invite over the two black people I know to eat fried chicken. We watch Oprah. Each of us declares it the best black history month we’ve ever had.

February 10 – I get an overwhelming desire to learn to salsa dance incredibly well. This worries me. I buy porn.

February 23 – I go shopping with Becky’s mom for a nice suit. I express worries over my potential upcoming job interviews (potential because I am still in the pre-planning phases for filling out a resume). Becky’s mom comforts me with yogurt.

March 2 – I get lonely and call everyone I know and invite them to a “sandwiches and sluts” party hosted by me at my apartment. The party is scheduled for March 15. It lifts my spirits having sandwiches to look forward to. The sluts also lift my spirits.

March 7 – I tell a guy I hate that girls love men who can cry. I convince him I can get him a girlfriend by doing the good cop – bad cop routine. We go to a party and I punch him, saying, “you’re welcome.” I go home happy.

March 10 – I learn the guy I hate has a girlfriend, all the girlfriend’s friends hate me and the guy I hate thinks I’m his friend. I begin to wonder if punching him was worth it.

March 11 – I punch the guy again. He no longer thinks he’s my friend. I realize it was worth it.

March 14 – I order an origami set and eat some of it, thinking it’s a Japanese delicacy. I do cart wheels and sit ups, entertaining the idea that I would maybe throw up a grand piano or a swan. It doesn’t pan out.

March 15 – I eat a lot of sandwiches with all of my male friends (see March 2).

March 27 – I move all my belongings into one room and begin wearing robes like a monk. I talk down the idea of material possessions during the day to anyone who walks by. At night I show people my room full of stuff and tell them it’s a jungle gym.

March 29 – A sorority girl wakes me up and asks where she is. She had been living off of skittles and candy necklaces in my jungle gym room. She gained two pounds.

April 5 – I get dressed up in a suit. I show up to all the classes of one former professor who I knew regularly arrived five minutes late. Then I would tell the students their professor had died and cry uncontrollably and grossly (like an infant with a cold type-crying) until the students would leave.

April 12 – I post an old paper I’d written on the web. Then, I use this same paper, only changing the title. I turn it in for class. I leave an anonymous note for the professor saying I plagiarized.

April 13 – My name is brought in front of the academic honesty board by my professor.

April 14 – All charges are dropped and I receive an official apology on school letter-head, signed by the professor.

April 20 – I get bored and head to the gym to watch cable TV while standing on a treadmill.

May 23 – I graduate.

July 15 – I get a cushy job.