Are you Smarter than my Housemates?

Happy (almost) New Year! In the spirit of "out with the old and in with the new" here's a rant.

A palate-cleanser. Feel free to look at this when you're done.

I am not the best housemate. I have clutter. I sometimes leave dishes in the sink overnight. I'm sure there are a dozen other things that would drive another housemate insane - including my complaining about the shit that they do. But here's the thing: I am capable of change.

Let me introduce you to my housemates: CAN'T and WON'T. They're both stuck in some pre-pubescent developmental stage where one can not learn new things and one chooses not to learn new things. I'm not sure which is worse. I'm very tired of looking after them. So tired, in fact, I've stopped doing things in my house. We need a new faucet, but I know if I install one it'll be broken in a week. I've had broken lights in the kitchen, two bedrooms, and the basement for years because one of them doesn't know the difference between a pull-chain and a lawnmower pull-start. There's a gas clothes dryer in the basement waiting to be hooked up, but I know - I know- the second I hook it up one of the two is going to burn my house down.

What can I do? Well, rant about it for a bit. With apologies for pictures of my dirty house - I simply cannot clean up after three grown men (including myself).

Please compare and contrast:

Note the bowl above and the bowl on the floor below.

The otter can stack cups so that they nest inside each other. One of my housemates does not have that mental capability. To the left of this picture is a similar pile of pots. Are you smarter than my housemates? Can you stack things like the otter or do you set them nearby in the hopes that your mom does it for you?

Yesterday, WON'T was worried there might be mold in a butter dish. The dish had a teeny-tiny black speck. I didn't realize he'd be able to perceive such a small imperfection given he routinely overlooks the following:

After slathering his hands in mayo, WON'T loves to grab door handles.

This is spilled syrup that WON'T left to make the bottoms of everything sticky.

I don't have photos of the ants or the mouse shit from the summer (guess who leaves crumbs everywhere, like some sort of Crumb-Laden Pig-Pen). I won't post a photo of the bathroom mirror that is absolutely covered in toothpaste splatter. I used to clean it up, but the simpleton adds more splatter every day. I don't know what cognitive defect he has that prevents him from either using less toothpaste or keeping the toothbrush in his fucking gob, but I know WON'T, well, won't learn. Now I only clean the mirror when I have company coming over or the house to myself for a few days (more on this later).

For better or worse, CAN'T, well, can't learn. Here's his dirty underwear on a chair.

Thanks, glad you put this somewhere I sit.

Instead of asking or pattern-matching, CAN'T likes to put items in random locations. I have a drawer for long utensils - obviously an ice cream scoop goes in there and the foot-long knife goes in the regular drawer! My favorite was seeing a rag we use for dishes almost make it to a drawer full of dishrags.

CAN'T hung the cloth within arm's reach of the drawer.

While we're on the subject of dish rags and dish cloths, neither of them understand organization. In my linen closet I have one shelf that is organized as such: to the left are bath towels, in the middle are hand towels, to the right are washcloths. I swear the two of them throw clean towels in the closet at random. Not a huge deal, but illustrative.

As for other stuff, medicine is always jumbled, everything's expired, and once something is set down, it's left there permanently. Of course, they never look to see if we have something (or might need something) - they'd rather wipe their asses with their hands instead of buying toilet paper when we're on the last roll (I keep an emergency roll in my room). If one gets inspired to do some cleaning (quarterly at best) they will buy all new supplies. I think we have four mops, used once each.

Not that they actually use any of this!

My favorite bit of shortsightedness is fairly disgusting. CAN'T has a private-ish toilet. Instead of lifting the seat to pee in the toilet, he just pees on the seat. It's noticeable - not like just one drop. So that means when CAN'T takes a shit, he's sitting in his own piss. He's too dumb to take a tiny action so he doesn't have to sit in piss. Do you, dear reader, sit in your own piss? Are you smarter than my housemate?

CAN'T also smokes. It's an addiction, I understand, and he's good about doing it out back. Of course, instead of buying his own lighter he used up every match in the house, but whatever - I've now hidden some in case of an emergency. What drives me insane is that he just leaves the butts all over outside - there's a trashcan next to where he stands! I mean, I understand letting the cigarette go out / not starting a trashcan fire, but that takes what, five seconds? So now I get to wade through his cigarette butts every time I go out back.

The work of a genius.

Thankfully, CAN'T is employed. I get a reprieve from his nonsense. WON'T, however, is unemployed / on disability and so he never leaves the house. I wake up every morning to him screaming at the cat. Screaming. In anger. Why? Because the cat is meowing or the cat is slightly obstructing his view of the television (god forbid WON'T is unable to see the television). Every morning. Every. Single. Morning. I wake up to him screaming at a cat for being a cat. The funniest part of this is that he gives the cat a treat when she meows, thinking it'll make her be quiet. The cat is smarter than WON'T. The cat can learn and chooses to do so, unlike WON'T. So, she keeps meowing and keeps getting the dullard to give her treats.

Unrelated to learning ability, if only because this is a rant, I should mention WON'T also chooses not to leave the house. He's in his recliner from about 8am to 11pm, though he'll stay there until 1am if I ever want to use the TV. Sometimes I fake going to bed so he zombies his way to bed and I get back up to watch a video in peace. I've mentioned him getting work, I've mentioned him volunteering, but he only leaves the house to go to the gym (good on him)... fortnightly or to go to a girlfriends' place. Note not "girlfriend's" - he's got four of them. Four! I keep thinking about telling the fourth about the other three, but she's the only reason he ever leaves the house overnight, so I'm staying mum.

The ultimate irony here is I'm the idiot. CAN'T has a job. WON'T has four girlfriends. So I'm here stuck with these two because I don't have a job / don't have money coming in so I don't want to spend money going out. How did it come to this? I suspect, dear reader, that you're also smarter than me.