The Girl Whose Name I Can’t be Forced to Remember

I sat back and sighed, finally once again the master of my domain. I was finally rid of the burden of the two extra roommates and I was the happier for it. Ok, to catch you up . . .

When I moved out on my own, I totally moved out on my own. Unlike your average twenty-something, I did not move in with friends, I just moved out on my own. I had a trailer of my own, with nobody else with which to share it.

It took some getting used to, but I eventually grew to like not having anyone to mess with my things, or to tell me what I needed to be doing. Due to a deal with my sister, I still had someone once a week doing my laundry (while I wasn’t home, but she was doing her family’s laundry at the same time so it worked out). Otherwise, I had the run of the place to myself.

Eventually a friend of mine, an acquaintance, really, needed a place to crash temporarily. Due to his pride, I accepted a monthly fee that he was good at paying. Having spent his time in the Armed Forces, he didn’t complain at how low I set the thermostat in the winter or how high in the summer, so things went fairly well, and our friendship built.

All of this went well until Dierdre.

My roommate, Ron, suddenly began to see my ex-girlfriend, Dierdre. This wasn’t a problem at first. When I first had started dating her, I had realized that she wasn’t who I was to end up with, so I had never really grown attached. When we broke up, even, the break-up was more of a mutual acknowledgement of what had already happened, so we managed to maintain friendship. After she started to “date” Ron, she
started to spend the night more and more with Ron.

When she spent more than half of her nights sleeping at my trailer, I finally intervened. I let her know that if she spent more than half her time at my place, she owed me rent. This went differently than I expected, and, next thing I knew, she was renting from me as well.

After she finally admitted that she was six months pregnant, I finally put my foot down and let them know that my trailer was no place to raise a child (a decision I later held to when my own child came along).