Henry, a young man in my class, came up after I excused everyone and waited in line to visit with me. As others came up and joined the line, he motioned for them to go ahead of him. He apparently wanted to be last, and when I have seen other students do that, it always meant they wanted to talk about something personal. Usually, that meant they had a grade they didn’t want anyone to know about.
Once everyone else was gone, he asked, “Professor Howard, may I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” I replied.
“What do you do when you have a roommate who is a lazy bum?”
I smiled. Questions about roommate problems were common. However, in my experience, most questions came from girls. When boys had issues, they usually punched it out and got it over with. With girls, it seemed to fester for a while.
“Is his laziness affecting your life, grades, or anything?” I asked.
“Some, but not in a horrible way,” he replied.
“Then, is your concern more for him?” I queried further.
He shook his head. “I am concerned about him. He is failing all of his classes because he doesn’t go. His parents pay for everything for him, so he doesn’t have to work a job or anything. But that’s not the real problem.”
“Then what is the real problem?” I asked.
He seemed to ponder for a moment, then spoke. “It’s just that he hogs the living room and the couch. If any of the rest of us want to watch TV, we have to watch what he wants, because he was there watching first. But he’s always there watching it, so it’s not a first, but an always, and he watches stupid sitcom stuff.”
“Maybe you need to have an apartment meeting, and you and the rest of your roommates can insist on voting on shows with the majority ruling.”
“We could do that, and he would hate us, but there is still more. Not only does he sit there and watch TV, but he eats, dresses, and acts like a slob. He leaves trash all over, and even if we clean the apartment, it would be inappropriate to bring our girlfriends over with the way he dresses.”
“Then it is affecting your life,” I said. “You really need to have an apartment meeting and all discuss it, him included. It will be hard, but it’s probably the only way.”
Henry nodded, and I could see his reluctance. I wished him the best. He thanked me and left.
A couple of weeks later, I caught up with Henry again to see how it was going.
“My other roommates didn’t want to confront him,” Henry said. “So, we thought maybe if he got embarrassed enough, he’d change. We tried bringing some girls over, but they were more embarrassed than he was. Then we had the idea to post an ad in the school newspaper.”
“What did it say?” I asked.
He pulled out the paper and read it to me. “Roommate for sale cheap. Good couch ornament. Might even pay to have removed.”
I laughed. “Did that work?”
“When we showed it to him, he didn’t seem to care. But then something strange happened. We had put his number on the ad, and girls actually started calling. They seemed to feel they could help him.”
“Are you serious?”
Henry nodded. “I work hard and can hardly get a date, and girls call him on a stupid ad. One asked him out, and he went with her. Suddenly, he wants to do more with life. I guess if it works, it works.”
I smiled, thinking it is strange when things don’t work out as expected.
