End Of An Error: I'm Not Doing A Share House This Summer
Sad news out of my white life today: this summer, I opted out of a share house in Montauk. I’ve been part of a share house for the last four summers, and it’s been a wild ride. But there comes a point in every young Francis’ life when he arrives home from the beach on a mid-July Sunday evening, having endured the entirety of a 3.5-hour train ride with his underwear full of sand, shaking from exhaustion and a deep fear of Monday, his gym bag full of dirty clothes and a pair of once-white sneakers turned black from the sludge of a heaving dance floor, with track marks in his arms from the kindergarten teacher who seemed like a straight shooter but was just a shooter; there comes a time when this Francis looks in his mirror on Sunday night and says… no more.
Don’t get me wrong, these were some wonderful summers. The first year I joined a share house, I was 24 and single for the first time since college. I felt like a young orangutan who had been raised in a zoo, released into the wild, making friends left and right and humping everything in sight. Turns out, that orangutan learns very quickly that most orangutans are happy to hump as long as it leads to steady, consistent orangutexting and reservations at creative Thai fusion restaurants. When you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, the orangutans get together and talk about how “he isn’t what we thought” and he “might be a terrorist” (seriously, a girl called me a terrorist that summer. A TERRORIST. If she ever joins ISIS, she’ll be in for a rude awakening!)
But it’s not all sex, drugs, and rock and roll. This is the reality of share houses:
Frankly, Feits’ empty house is a goddamn palace compared to the slums I slept in. Our houses were always pretty nice but we just had SO many dudes. The first summer, it was 16 of us in a 4-bedroom. Every year, people made a little more money and we would pay more to have fewer people, but it was always at least 12-13 guys. And when your buddy brings home a girl and locks down the master bedroom at 1AM, and your other buddy brought his girlfriend for the weekend so they have their own bedroom, that means 10 of you are left to share 2 beds. And a couch. And a pool float.
God FORBID you do a co-ed share house. It might sound good in theory, with such proximity to members of the opposite sex and so few beds that you’re forced to share a blanket/oral. But when you’re waiting in a 7-person line for the shower before a night out, and the water is freezing by the time you get in, and the hair has clogged the drain so you can only shower for a minute before the putrid, brackish water is at your knees, you realize that cohabitation is a pipe dream that no plumber can fix.
Simply put, I’ve grown out of it. I’m 29 now. My friends are disappearing into mature relationships that require all of their attention for some unknowable reason. The fun is over. I’d rather sleep on my California King Leesa mattress at home in my air-conditioned apartment, and spend the next day playing a well-rested round of golf. I shouldn’t be at the beach anyway, what with recent studies about sunlight affecting people like me.
I asked twitter for some nightmare stories about share house sleeping accommodations. Here are some of my favorites:
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Sounds beautiful, honestly. I’ve always wanted to spend a night in the Garden of Eden, with a maple leaf covering my genitals and Eve telling me to bite the apple before we let instincts take over for the sake of populating the earth. This seems pretty close.
Murphy bed’s law: whatever bad sleep can happen, will happen.
PS: this is the funniest thing anyone has ever tweeted at me.
Marry her immediately.
I’ve slept in the car before. It’s not great. In order to sleep in a car, you need it to be moving. I can sleep in cars no problem as long as someone is driving steadily down the highway for a couple hours. But with no motion or gentle hum of the engine, you realize that you’re sleeping in your parked car… like a gypsy.
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Not really a share house story, but a terrific image nonetheless.
Huh. Might want to keep that friend off the email chain for next year, because he’s clearly working his way up to murdering people.
Generous to let your pal sleep in your bed. Resourceful to find a lady to shack up with. Strange to think the trunk was an option, unless you’ve been kidnapped before.