Roommate Confessions

Every once in a while I sit in front of my computer and think about blog topics. Should I write a blog on “How To Tell If Your Boyfriend Is Gay” or maybe “The Top 5 Signs Your Child Is A Flaming Homosexual“? But every once in while I’ll hear the sweet sound of blogging success on its own, and today it came in the form of a toilet flush.

Everyone in my inner-circle knows about my Asian roommate, Ling-Ling. She comes from a land far away where viruses run rampant on the streets–I’m talking computer viruses–she’s from Malaysia. And I fondly remember the day when little Ling-Ling first moved to Brooklyn; she came running home that afternoon carrying a case of mangoes she had purchased. It was a beautiful moment.

Nando: Girl, what the hell is wrong with you? Where do you plan on keeping an entire case of mangoes?
Ling-Ling: Oh, here is good. (placing them on my stove top)
Nando: Sister, stoves may be mango-storage in Malaysia, but in Brooklyn, you just don’t go putting things on people’s stoves.
Ling-Ling: Oh, so sorry.
Nando: And where did you get a whole case of mangoes any way?
Ling-Ling: Chinatown.
Nando: You went all the way to Chinatown for mangoes? Girl, Chinatown is dirty, filthy, disgusting and crawling with people who never bathe and have bad teeth.
Ling-Ling: Oh, I know, makes me miss homeland.

Now, I knew from then on, this Ling-Ling was nothing but trouble–but I failed to listen to my inner-voice–you know the one Oprah teaches us to listen to. Well, fast-forward to today at 3:00 pm Eastern Time. I’m sitting at my desk organizing notes, writing e-mails and looking for men to have anonymous sex with when nature called; I had a gallon of pink lemonade earlier–don’t judge. I rushed to the bathroom to find that it was being occupied by Ling-Ling. I knew she was up to no good, that one.

I waited like a patient Mexican is taught to wait (in unemployment lines, immigration lines, and the deportation line–in case those other two lines fail to work). I heard a flush; she walked out of the bathroom, smiled at me then proceeded to her room. I gave her a suspicious look then ran to the bathroom.

As I unzipped my shorts, I saw something shiny in the toilet bowl. I leaned in. It was a quarter.

Nando: LING-LING! LING-LING! Get in here.

She came running in wearing a HUGE pair of Sony headphones too large for her head.

Ling-Ling: Hu? What’s wrong?
Nando: Girl, are you dropping quarters in my toilet bowl? This is not a wishing well Ling-Ling!
Ling-Ling: No, why?
Nando: Look!

We both leaned in and looked inside the toilet bowl. There was the quarter; it was looking back at us.

Ling-Ling: I don’t know?
Nando: Girl, I don’t know either.

Ling-Ling ran out of the bathroom and just as quick as she left, she reappeared–this time with a pair of yellow rubber gloves. She quickly handed them over to me.

Ling-Ling: This help?
Nando: Help what? I ain’t touching that.
Ling-Ling: Oh, then how quarter leave toilet?

Did she really expect me to dive for it? What’s the foreign national policy on this one? Does a Mexican out-rank an Asian? We flushed the toilet but the quarter just stayed there–getting shinier with each flush.

Nando: Well, we just can’t leave it there. We’ll flip a coin and the loser has to grab it.

I lost.

Nando:(Putting on the rubber gloves) While I reach for the quarter, you flush so that clean water is washing away the old water. Got it?
Ling-Ling: Ha. Yes.

As I reached inside the toilet bowl, Ling-Ling got over excited and failed to wait for my cue and began multi-flushing and I couldn’t see the quarter because of the swirling water and I panicked. In a huge swooping gesture I lifted my hand out from the toilet bowl splashing water all over us.

Nando: Is it still there?

We both leaned in and looked.

Ling-Ling: Quarter gone.
Nando: Let that be a lesson to you Ling-Ling, no money in the bathroom.

Ling-Ling and her large headphones left the bathroom unfazed, returning to their room to play Mariah Carey. I, on the other hand, was a new man. I had now seen things that no gay man should have to ever see, I placed my hands in a place no Mexican ever should (I think that’s an oxymoron). My fears are no longer the same; I now fear loose change and rubber gloves. And I’m not sure there’s a support group for us. So the next time you’re at a cocktail party as someone brings up the New York myth about rats in the toilet bowls, you now know of an even harrier tale; Nando and the Asian quarter.

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