Five Card Story: On My Way Out the Door

a ds106 story created by Mixy

flickr photo by ismart29

flickr photo by ismart29

flickr photo by cogdogblog

flickr photo by pakalko21

flickr photo by paulhami

I wake up feeling flustered and unprepared as I scramble to shut off my alarm before it beats me to the third beep. I am late for work. I throw my pink sheets aside and rush to get dressed.

As I stagger out of my bed room door I walk down the hallway and head out. All of a sudden there is my roommate Julia just standing there. She has one shoe on. She asks if she can have one of my shoes!? She explains to me that she is meeting her “crush” today and can’t bear the fact of showing up with one shoe. She rolls up her pant legs to make it even more evident that indeed she had only one shoe, and then chuckled as if knowing my next move.

Why do I do these things??? I comply and give her my shoe. My whole outfit is now thrown out of whack, ruined! So I make an executive decision to get myself out of this sudden rut and change it up a bit by going sandals. I felt safe with sandals, if Julia loses another shoe on the way out the door I am of no help this time. I throw on a sleek white blazer and match it with some bone white pants just in case she loses anything else.

I was ready for my day and hastened my way out the door. As I’m leaving I get stunned by “Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh!!” and nearly called my day quits right there. I timidly turn around and am face to face with an indian of unusually light skin.

Oh my god Jenny what the hell!!?? Jenny my other roommate, is dressed up in an even more preposterous outfit than I am! I wondered briefly if she had encountered Julia and was using a similar tactic as myself.

Jenny explains to me that she is tired of what she calls “cleaning up after me”. She said she had to take drastic measures to make me learn that I have to help with the dishes. “Fine, fine!” I proclaim. She truly had the heart of an indian warrior that day, for she drags me back inside to clean up my mess I left the night before. I didn’t even remember the night before, this could get messy as well as get me fired.

I walk back in and she stares at the kitchen counter. I stare as well.

There is a mechanical egg beater. I look at it, and she looks at me. It looks pretty clean already, but it may indeed need washing. I flat out refuse. “I will not clean what is not mine” I declare!! “I can barely use a spork, let alone this machine!” Julia then walks in.

“Ohhhhhhh” she says. “Thats mine, sorry about that. I had an egg last night”. Then she says “Oh and you left your ipod upstairs on your bed, I noticed while looking for an extra pair of socks”.

Oh thank god. I have to ride my grandfather’s hand me down bike to work everyday and music is the only thing that gets me through the rough commute. “I owe you one Julia thanks!” I run upstairs and grab my sweet ipod off my soft, pink blanket which whispers to me it was not that long ago that we parted ways.

I start to wonder why again I lived with girl roommates, and stared at the pink blanket. I realized this is not where I belong, I didn’t even know these people. An indian and a girl with one shoe. I knew what I had to do, I had to live with bros. I packed all my belongings and loaded them onto the back of my bike. Without looking back I started to ascend up the first hill, not knowing. I thought of my past, of Jenny and Julia…..and my shoe!!

I wish I had the courage to say that I continued on my epic journey, but I went back for the shoe. I went back and I stayed and never thought about leaving again. I began to get to know Julia and Jenny and learned to love them for who they are. We are all still one big happy family, and looking forward to many more years to come.