the Forty Fourth Story

The Mushroom story: (this one's good! it has a punchline! it's worth reading to the end)I lived in one apartment for almost the entire time I was at Massart, but during that time, lots of folks moved in and out. After I'd been there for six months, everyone but me left, and Svea, Tom, and Sonia all moved in. This was ideal. Everyone got along, everyone had similar ideas of personal space, things were great. Svea moved out and Tyrell moved in. Things were still great.  Sonia moved out and Amber moved in. It still worked. Then Amber decided we needed a chore schedule. This pissed off everyone, and everyone, without talking about, decided they were only doing chores as they were assigned, but mostly still only did the chores that they had been doing before the schedule. Previously, Tom pretty much didn't clean, but he regularly made chilli and cheese cakes, and that was a fine balance, as far as I was concerned. I kept the bathroom and counters cleaned. Everybody did their dishes (including Tom). Sonia had done most of the neatening, and I admit, we were collectively falling behind in that department with her gone. One month, on Amber's bathroom cleaning turn, she made everything in there REALLY neat. Cleaned the mirror so it shone. Put the shampoo bottles in order by size. Looked great.
That night, Dustin was over. About three AM he got up to go to the bathroom. He shouted back "Kest, come here! You've got to see this!" There is, I thought, nothing I could need to see in my bathroom at three am. I shouted back a simple "no". He insisted. I put on a bathrobe and went out, bitching in my head. There, though, in the corner of the bathroom, were mushrooms. Sprouting right from the floor. They were aesthetically pleasing, and also absolutely hilarious, particularly after the scene Amber had made about how she was the only one who ever really got anything clean in the house. Dustin and I stood there and laughed for a while, I took a picture, and we went to bed. I left the mushrooms in place, knowing that Tom would enjoy them at least as much as I had.
In the morning, I got up and asked Tom if he'd seen the mushrooms. He hadn't, and I took him in to show him, but they were gone! We were both upset by this tragedy, and asked Amber if she knew anything about it. She was livid, and utterly unamused.

the eleventh story

Today's Short Story:
My old roommate Tom used to make us all chili, on a semi-regular basis. This was awesome. One day, he came home with some unmarked peppers and went to sautee them to put in the chili. I was back in my bedroom, with the door closed, but even so, I started coughing. And then it go worse. Finally, I opened the door to ask what the hell was going on, and was hit by what can accurately be described as a cloud of pepper spray. Tom must have heard me open the door, since at that moment he shouted "Go out the window! Save yourself!".
We all survived, but it was several hours till we could go back in the house.