Sure, the title does have an odd say. You may even find it funny. But let me tell you when you actually live with it, you’ll realize how filthy it is! Anyway, before we begin with this story, a spoiler, it’s true- My hostel roommate took a bath once a week!
Initial Days with the Hostel Roommate
It wasn’t the same case when I joined the University. Everything was new to all of us roommates. We all did our best to be polite to one another and even stay ideal with our behaviours and lifestyles.
However, sometime later, we all fell into our own habits. But these were simple habits, I skipped my morning workout here and there and there and that would be it. But later on, it got worse with our roommate. We were living in threes in the hostel.
A month later, me and one of the other roommate talked about how the third roommate (let’s call him X to make it easier) never washed his socks. Honestly, we had to talk about it because the room literally stank sometimes.
Socks… and shoes!
First off, we couldn’t tell X straight away because he was neither a friend nor an enemy to us. He was just a roommate we had to deal with. We just would buy deodorants and spray it across the room. We couldn’t touch his socks either because who would?
Once when I came back after a long day, the room was stinking as usual. I couldn’t hold the smell anymore. I was alone in the room and hence, I began my search for the treasure chest. Alas! I never found them. However, X had a pile of dozen shoes arranged in a shabby manner under the table.
Out of curiosity, I went near them and… Oh My God! The smell was from these! The guy had probably found his socks too smelly to wear, so now he just wore his shoes with his bare legs. I felt disgusted every time I looked at him… but this isn’t the real twist, is it?
Getting Caught Red-Handed
Me and the other roommate managed on fine for some time as we now knew exactly where to spray the deodorant. When X wasn’t around, we would go near the table and spend a long time spraying his shoes. That helped us to stay alive.
But someone had to tell X about it now or later. Well, no one did. One day, when I and my other roommate were holding our noses and spraying at the shoes, he barged in the room. We turned to him, shocked. He looked shocked himself- obviously.
That night, he took the time to wash all of his shoes. We believed we were all saved.
The Real twist!
The following night, when everything seemed alright- without any deodorant- I and my other hostel roommate again felt a stinking smell arousing. X was in his bed half-naked. My roommate and I exchanged glances.
No, it wasn’t just the shoes and the socks that stank… it was X himself! When I made a keen observation for some time, I recorded that he took a bath once on the 24th of October… the next time he took a bath was on the 2nd of November. And he maintained this.
He would just wake up 5 minutes before college began and would go to the basin and spray deodorants all over his body. One thing he spent a lot of time on was his hair. He would spend 15 minutes of his morning just combing it, using the hair-dryer, applying some products on it and so on.
Punch Line: If my hostel roommate had spent that 15 minutes of his day for taking a bath, I and the other roommate would have had a sustainable environment for the semester.
You may like this one too: My Story: From Homophobic To Playing A Gay Character In A Film