Silent, sad, and shoveling cold scrambled eggs into my face; I’m sprawled across the apartment couch, surveying the summative damages in the unforgiving light of day. The lease expires in a week and, judging by the filth-laden interior, gapingly-slutty drywall holes, and non-working fixtures and residents, our security deposit is in serious jeopardy. We’re at a crossroads; are we just going to continue down this apathetically-indifferent path and let the landlord hoard our entire deposit, effectively and non-consensually fucking our future finances?
No, of course we’re not. Actually, we’re all excited at the prospect of Dude Project Day; it’ll be like the set of Home Improvement except with actual laughs and, well, probably just as much drug use. Motivated but nostalgic, I can’t wait to pop on some montage music and get to work, however, I will be sad to see some of the damages, true souvenirs of alcoholism, from this wasteland get fixed.
Soon, we’re at the hardware store and everyone’s chuckling at us. Granted, we’re all in sandals, tanks, and snapbacks, but that doesn’t give the clerk the right to ask us a second time if we’re “sure we’re in the right place?”
Whatever, we may not look the part; we’re like the city slicker trying to ride a horse at the dude ranch or the racially-insensitive country boy starting basketball camp, but we’re still customers. I’m confident, I’m handy, I know which end is the business end of a hammer and I can fully embody the craftsman spirit of Ty Pennington, so I have no doubt we’ll be successful in our work and still manage to get good and tipsy while operating power tools this afternoon.
Back home, we devise a home-repair drinking game and crank up the jams. The roommates start patching the holes and dents in the walls with a spackle improvised from toothpaste and I, full of high hopes and light beer, attack the far bathroom, determined to unclog the bog-like wreckage. I shut myself off from everyone and it becomes non-stop tears, fears, and 1980’s hits, yet the congealed mass doesn’t budge. The whole substance is what I picture liquefied tire rubber being like and I simply can’t force it down. Twenty minutes later I’m spent. This isn’t going to happen. I figure this bathroom’s only a minor set back; we’ll just be sure to fix everything else to avoid being fiscally violated by the frugal dick of our landlord.
I move to my bedroom and a rancid smell hits me. It’s my heating vent; the thing’s packed with countless cigarette butts from the days when I was too cold, too hungover, or too naked to get out bed to smoke. Closer examination tells me that this tobacco graveyard is too far down the duct to ever get cleaned, so I might as well just sweep more garbage down, open a window, and wish for the best. We’ve only be at this for a half hour and I’m already struggling to remember why I ever felt optimistic, but, then again, maybe they’re making progress in the living room.
Christ on a cracker, they’ve deserted me. The living room’s nothing but spattered paint, drywall fragments, and dashed dreams. They’ve likely succumbed to the call of cheap liquor and loose women, so immediately I text them to meet up.
Literally everything is in worse shape than when we started. Time to just do the responsible thing and quit before we ruin anything else and come to terms with losing our entire deposit.
Justin Gawel is an adult baby from Michigan whose articles appear on BroBible.com and Guyism.com most weeks. Look for more of his writing, his BroBible archive, and his updates at www.justingawel.com or follow him @justingawel on Twitter.