Share and share alike

I have noticed that, when I drink, a lot of things happen.

I talk a lot more shit. A. Lot. But it's all interesting shit. I know all the words to all songs ever written, and prove it readily and loudly. And I'm a lot more attractive to everyone. I also find myself saying, "yes" a lot more than my sober, more circumspect self would.

It is for the last of these reasons that, in a couple of weeks, I have a Swiss girl coming to stay with me.

I was in the pub, with a couple of colleagues, when one said that he knew someone who was coming to London for a few weeks to improve her English, and needed somewhere to stay. And like that (*clicks fingers*) I was saying, "she can come and stay with me."

Now, someone (who will remain nameless) has suggested that I use the time I have with someone who says things like, "I am thankingful very much," to introduce some fake English words*. Others think it's potentially time consuming, some think it's interesting, and the people who know me best realise that it might end in tears.

I have, since student days, lived with two people. The first was a slightly obsessive compulsive girl, who was slightly mental but actually, in the main, either somewhere else, or on good form. In the main, we had a good time. In the main, it was ok.

The second though. Phewy! She was a bit crazy. Actually, that's not fair. I'm selling her short. She was absolutely fricking fruitloop! We lived together for a year, and it was the longest year of my life.

She was a smoker, which I knew when we took the place together, and, in itself, wasn't a problem. But I objected slightly that she used anything she could find to flick her fag ash into. Still, all was fine until I bought her an ashtray and asked her to use that instead of my wineglasses, and she threw a benny. And the glass in use at the time. A minuscule over reaction, perhaps.

Speaking of reactions, one evening I came home to the smell of gas. She had left the tap on the gas hob open a smidge. To be fair, it could have happened to anyone. So I went into the lounge (which led to the kitchen) and said, "I can smell gas." "Can you?" she said, looking at me vacantly, "I can't." Then she took out her cigarette lighter, and sparked up. AAAGGGHHH! I pointed out the stupidity of what she was doing, and she flounced from the room, ranting. All my fault apparently.

Oh, there were so many examples of abject idiocy! The food that went into the freezer was carefully frozen in portions for two. Each time she cooked (which, mercifully, was rarely) she would take, say, the two chicken breasts out of the freezer, and prise them apart, and use only one to cook a meal for two, and be surprised that there wasn't enough food. Can you imagine the sheer force that it must take to separate two frozen chicken breasts? Would you not, at any point in that process, think about throwing caution to the wind and using both? Maybe?

But then, if you dropped a heated iron on a cream lounge carpet, I assume you'd rush to pick it up, rather than using the immortal line, "gosh! That was close! That almost landed on my foot!"

Her finest hour was when she took something of a fancy to my boyfriend of the time. She'd flirted a little for a while, then one day decided to make her move.

As I've said, the kitchen opened off the lounge. Next to the kitchen door was our dining table. Immediately inside the kitchen (i.e. the other side of a flimsy internal wall from said dining table) was the fridge. We'd just finished our dinner one evening, and I was in the kitchen at the fridge, roughly, to paint a full picture, three feet from where she sat. It was from this position, that I heard her say to Boyf, "if things don't work out between you two, you can always give me a call." I stood, agog, at the kitchen door, looking directly at Boyf, who gawped back at me, opening and closing his mouth a few times, before saying, "actually, I think I'm alright, thanks." She knew I was in the next room and was entirely unrepentant. It didn't seem to cross her mind that she'd done anything wrong.

Still, not to be outdone, she started making dirty 'phone calls to his mobile in the middle of the night. We didn't realise it was her at first. It came up as "number withheld" on his phone, so it could have been anyone. It took some detective work to get to the bottom of the mystery.

The thing with making nuisance phone calls, is that it pays not to make them from the phone which you share with the person you are pestering, especially if you've already insisted on itemised bills. And the thing with being clinically stupid is that you should know your limits.

All told, I'm a little anxious about the prospect of sharing my home with someone again. I'm worried that it will be an invasion of my privacy. I worry that she will be a cookoo in my nest. I worry that Swiss Chick will flick cigarette ask into my wine glasses, blow up my kitchen, and set fire to my carpet.

On the positive side, at least there's no boyfriend for her to steal this time. And for that, I am thankingful, very much.


*Secretly I think this is a splendid idea, and am now collecting made up words. Please supply suggestions, along with a definition, and a sentence using the word in context. Thank you!