Way Back Thursday: Prepositions are Everything

This is a picture of me and LeMieux in Jason's Room in "The Lodge" (which you can see had a strong beer-can chic vibe going. Many of his roommates worked at Joe's Taproom and were always helpfully donating decorations no longer needed at the bar) in Manhattan in January of 2002.  Though I never really loved the lodge, it was fine when Jason lived there with his fraternity brothers. But this picture was taken later, when most them had graduated. So it reminds me of his roommate Brent. Jason needed another guy to pay rent so he put an ad up and met this guy Brent (fun tip: if a potential roommate tells you he works "at the hospital" and it turns out he works "on the hospital" as in constructing it, maybe that isn't the only thing that could be a misrepresentation). Everyone was supposedly always against Brent so crazy things were always happening to him for "no reason". Like his boss would just fire him just for being late when it totally wasn't his fault for being late because some really mean person had pushed his car into a ravine for no reason whatsoever. And another boss fired him for no reason at all because it wasn't his fault some person stole his work boots. I mean, he can't work without boots, what do you really expect him to do? He was also super hot in his circle, so girls would always be fighting over him (Not normal girls. Think Jerry Springer), including one set of sisters.

Brent's main redeeming quality was he was in jail for most of the semester so he wasn't at the house. Of course, he didn't pay rent since he couldn't work while in jail, but he didn't pay rent before he went to jail either, so it was still a net win. I was in Manhattan over Christmas break because I took a class. Jason was with his family for the break so I would stop by Jason's house to feed LeMieux and spend time with her since she was a very social cat. One time, Brent asked me to drive him (his car was in the ravine, remember?) to his friend's house as I was leaving from spending time with LeMieux. I didn't really want to because he was so awful and stank like cigarettes, but I didn't have a pressing reason I couldn't do it other than I didn't want to so I felt like I couldn't say no (I am so much better at that now), so I said okay and we got in the car. I drove and drove to the outskirts of Manhattan and it was pitch black and we were in a deserted area. We were getting really close to Tuttle Creek Reservoir, and I was becoming increasingly concerned he was going to kill me and dump my body there. But it turned out, right before the reservoir there is a trailer park (of course we were going to a trailer park) and that's where his friend lived. Not long after that, he went to jail again, so that was pretty much our last interaction, though the good thing was I think he was in jail for writing bad checks or something like theft, not being a serial killer who dumped people in lakes. Bonus: His best friend was awful and abused animals and he stopped visiting once Brent went to jail so double win. It was totally worth not having the rent, especially for me since I wasn't really involved in the money situation.