Living with a Freak

One college summer, a roommate of mine moved back home and found a lovely subletter named "Troy" to take his place. Now Troy was quite an interesting character. Before moving in with me and my other roommates, he had spent the previous year traveling around the US following Phish. In addition to traveling, Troy enjoyed partaking in many drugs. A different kind of trip I suppose. Now why did I first put the name Troy in quotes? Well you see, "Troy" wasn't even his real name. I can't remember what his real name was, but how he came to be called "Troy" is a classic "Troy" story. One weekend, while still in the midst of following Phish around the country, he found himself crashing in the woods with some fellow Phish heads. As the story goes, him and a friend were tripping on some shrooms, or something, and his friend goes to him all serious "Yo man, YOU'RE TROY". Troy then responded "Yeah, I AM TROY!". Weird, huh? What's funny is that he thought this little story was completely normal, and he explained it as matter of factly as if he were telling a story about where he bought his shoes.

Not surprisingly, and at his parents behest, Troy used to see a Psychiatrist. Being a cunning fellow, Troy would go into the Psychiatrists office and take notes himself. What did he take notes of? As I recall, he told me this:

"It was so funny, I'd walk in there and the Psychiatrist would be taking notes of our session. Meanwhile, I'd take out my little notebook and take notes about the Psychiatrist. He thought he was analyzing me, but I was really analyzing him."

Troy was so proud when he told this story, it was as if he was describing how he discovered the cure for polio or something. Troy also enjoyed saying the phrase "Right on, right on" like every fucking second. Interesting guy this Troy fellow was.

Sometimes Troy would get all deep and say stuff like: "Dude, when you think about it, life is almost like a house of ... its almost like a house of popsicle sticks, you know what I mean?" Sorry bro, I don't. Troy would sometimes try and explain his "deep" thoughts, and sometimes they'd actually make sense, in a weird sorta way. Maybe if I was into existentialism I'd appreciate his unique take on life, but before that, I'd need to look up "existentialism" in the dictionary, and we all know that ain't happening.

Contrary to public opinion, living with Troy wasn't all fun and games and popsicle sticks. For you see, while Troy enjoyed paying his dues, he didn't really enjoy paying rent so much. Long story short, he left town without paying a months rent. My roommate, who he was subletting from, tried to track him down and get shit settled out. First step: Call Troy's lovely parents. Bad move. Turns out they want nothing to do with Troy and his money problems anymore. Step 2: Call his girlfriend's parents and see what's up. Apparently they didn't care for Troy much and wanted him out of their daughter's life from the get go. This Troy fellow is getting shadier by the minute.

Next, Troy gets pissed that my roomie contacted his parents and sends him some email, with the subject as "War", saying how we are to contact him ONLY at some voicemailbox number, and how my roomie should think twice about contacting his parents again.

Then, his girlfriend sent my roomie an email saying how she's in lawschool (yeah right!) and how she knows lawyers in the area and how she might consider filing a restraining order and pressing charges against my roommate. Freak!

Long story short, turns out Troy and his girl moved down to Tennessee. SUPPOSEDLY, Troy became violent, broke some windows on his girlfriends car and became homeless after they broke up. Not to worry, she explained, Troy just had some mental problems and wasn't violent at all (never mind breaking some car windows??) In any event, Troy had a free months stay in our apt.

Anyone out there have some crazy roommate/subletter stories?