My roommate, who will change the world

One wonderful speaker I met two years ago at a conference told us to be unreasonable, quoting George Bernard Shaw, that only unreasonable people will change the world. He said that the reasonable adapt themselves to the world, and that the unreasonable adapts the world to them.

Thus, I feel compelled to share with you all today my secret fortune: my roommate, whose unreasonableness is so extreme, he must be destined to bring forth great change. We'll call him Bush. He is a subletter, and these are his teachings:


Thermostats are bad

Some Native Americans used to believe that ghosts lived in right-angles. The Chinese believed that ghosts couldn't jump, and so they built stepping stones in their doorways to keep ghosts out. The fact is, evil is embodied in many cultures, even if we sometimes forget it. I feel very fortunate to have Bush here to remind me to thermostats are pure evil. More, I'm glad that he takes an active stand against them. Here, you can see the result of an evil thermostat after Bush fearlessly assaulted it with his fists.

We were told these were $100 per piece, but a small monetary sum and constant cold are a small price to pay to be gone with this evil. 

Thermostats are really bad

Unfortunately, one of my other roommates was not as clearheaded as Bush. Instead of living without evil, he asked the repairman to give us a new thermostat. Luckily, Bush had many strategies to deal with these evils.

That's right. He superglued it, locking in the evil spirit. 

4:00 AM is the time to hammer things

I've always naively thought that 4:00 AM is generally the time for students to sleep. Plus or minus an hour or two, most people I know sleep from 12:00 AM (Midnight) to 9:00 AM, leaving the hours of 2:00 AM - 7:00 as generally indisputable quiet time.

Boy am I wrong. I woke up the other night at 4:00 AM to discover Bush hammering away loudly. I listened to the noise for about half an hour in bed, pondering just how close-minded I've been this whole time. Being such, I spoke to him the day after and asked him not to do that anymore.


4:00 AM is also the time to chop vegetables

Bush decided to be especially thoughtful a few weeks later, when he proceeded to chop vegetables loudly at 4:00 AM. This woke up another one of my roommates, who, since he was as close-minded as I was, also asked him to stop. Bush was kind enough to remind us that chopping vegetables and hammering were two distinctly different activities.


Fans aren't meant to be used, and alarms are meant to be set off

Both bathrooms in our apartment are equipped with fans. I've always thought these were meant to be turned on to dissipate steam from the shower and prevent mold from growing, but apparently I've been mistaken all along. Luckily, Bush was there to correct me. Without fail, he managed to keep the fan off after each of his 45-minute showers. He even selflessly instructed me that flipping the switch (which is a whole inch away from the light switch) is too much work. It's people like him, who always work towards a greener future, that inspire me.

Now, the next part really is my fault. You see, there is a fire alarm right outside the bathroom door.

Because this alarm is so far away from the kitchen, it never really has the opportunity to go off. Luckily, the steam from Bush's showers managed to set this baby off just about every morning. At first I was a little irritated that it kept waking me up, and so I confronted him about it. Sadly, I didn't consider that this sound is actually very beautiful.

Bush was very accommodating with this situation though. In fact, to save energy and accommodate my requests, he started closing the door to lock the steam inside the bathroom after he finished his shower. It was ingenious. Instead of turning on the fan, he could avoid the smoke alarm by locking the steam inside the room! That way, the next person who stepped into the room could feel like they just took a shower! I know I'm really weird, but I didn't like this feeling, so I thought of a solution.

Yep; in another act of complete selfishness, I had the audacity to tape the switches together, hoping that he would keep the fan on after his shower, because it was already on. Plus, I figured, the obvious duct tape would be a reminder. But Bush - he never once failed to go the green path. Even this alteration didn't stifle his conviction.


It's great to know such wonderful people exist in the world. Bush has been so unreasonable that if I didn't know better, I'd say he was on the far-tail-end of stupid. But I do know better, and can appreciate his genius.

@zeteg