Friends, Romans, Countrymen...lend me your bad roommate stories.

I know I've let this blog slip, but that's because most of my creative energy since August has gone to creating lesson plans.  But now that I'm teaching seniors, I plan to use Fridays to help them plan for real life.  Part of that is giving them real life scenarios and figuring out how to deal with them.  Since most of them will be in a roommate-type situation for the first time in their lives within the next six months, it's a good time for them to start thinking about it.

Here's one of mine.  Roommate A is habitually messy; Roommate B is not extremely clean, but is more of an organized chaos type (i.e. throws away legitimate trash, and what clutter there is goes in specific spots, but still not extremely neat).  Roommate B decides to clean up the place.  In order to get Roommate A involved, B jokingly texts A's girlfriend and says "Hey, tell A to come help me clean up around here."  A's girlfriend takes it to the extreme and chews out A for leaving his place messy.

A comes in the door.  "Why did you text my girlfriend?"  B starts laughing.  A doesn't.  B looks like a jerk and has to apologize.

By the way, I was the jerk in that situation, and Spock was A.  Spock did end up helping me clean, but after a little bit of aforementioned apologies.

Now, that's not my worst, but it's certainly a bad one.

What's  your best worst roommate story?

Roommate Games - a guest post by Tyler Tarver

Tyler Tarver, believe it or not, was not always married with an awesome son named Titus.  He did indeed spend some time being single, and has decided to share some of the funness of that with us.  Unlike me, he didn't forget about this blog, so go pay him in quantities of love over at his blog today.

Throughout my college experience, my friends and I had some excellent games we would play with specific homemade rules that tasted like apple pie. Their names were Chris, Daniel, and Matt, and they are all great things that look like real people.

Door Drop: This is an oldie but a goodie. You place some water (or “other” liquid) above the door, and perch it precariously so as to when your buddy walks in, it falls upon his lovely head. You can create combos of items to power up and reach the next level of your game. An easy escalation: Water in a bowl, with a piece of paper taped to the wall draped over it, with chocolate powder above it. The water will stick then the powder will give them a nice little antique tint that sticks to the liquid remains.

Poop Dollar: This is what it sounds like. You place an “artifact” on the side of a dollar, leave it in a strategic location, and hope your buddy forgets this game is still going on from 2 and a half years ago. The win: if he puts it in his pocket and finds out he’s playing hours/days later.

Bounce Off: This is a dangerous game of wonder. Rules are: you can throw stuff at your friend, but it has to bounce off something first. It makes typing on the computer more interesting when at any moment a tennis ball could bounce off the wall in front of you and high-5 your face. You could be standing in the doorway, and if your buddy has the skills to pay the lighting bills he can bounce it off the door frame and hit you in the covered cavern.

Those are just a few games to get your blood pumping.

Thanks Z, you’re money. 

In case you don't believe a word of this post, here's a video of Tyler and a former roommate playing a friendly game of Simon Says.

Tyler Tarver is a person that is taller than a hobbit but shorter than a million hobbits. You can check out his website tylertarver.com, subscribe to it here, check him on Twitter @tylertarver, or just buy his brand new toilet book which he won’t shutup about titled Words&Sentences that 4 people have said is “funnier than sliced bread.” He’s not as attractive as you, but he sure does love you

Bachelor Cooking: Cave Tacos, aka Beef 'n Corn

Now that we've got the basics of cooking down, we can start making some actual meals out of these foods.

Back when Kirk lived in Leaway Drive, he decided to start calling his apartment "The Cave."  He moved several times after that, but his place has always been "Therefore's Cave."  Kirk taught me a lot about cooking, especially cooking large quantities of stuff and living off of it for awhile.  Good for being a bachelor, as you don't have to cook every single day, just once a week.  All it takes is about an hour's time once a week, plus the associated cleanup.

One day we served one of the Cave's favorite foods, our friend "Bean" walked up to the stove and said, "Wow, beef and corn, is this some kind of ethnic dish?  Whaddya call it?"  I looked at him and said, "Yeah, we normally call it...tacos."  Something came over me and I started singing "beeeef and corn, beeeef and corn, there's a fountain flowing beef and corrrrn" to the tune of the old Vacation Bible School song "Deep and Wide."  Kirk popped up over the back of the couch and said, "If you find a fountain flowing with beef and corn, let me know where it is!"

Kirk has improved his recipe over time, but the name Beef 'n Corn has stuck.  Since I now have a Chinese neighbor who doesn't have much experience with American(ish) food, I decided to cook some Beef 'n Corn for her.

For this you need:

• Two pounds of ground beef, leanest brand works best
• One can of creamed corn
• Four bell peppers: red, orange, yellow, and green
• One onion
• One can of sliced mushrooms
• One can of refried beans and about as much salsa as you have beans
• One can of diced tomatoes
• One bag of shredded cheese
• One tub of sour cream
• One packet of taco bell taco seasoning
• One box of Zatarain's yellow rice

Take the beef and cook it thoroughly, adding the taco bell seasoning, hot sauce, and steak seasoning as it cooks.  Once the beef has browned properly, add the corn and tomatoes, being sure to drain the tomatoes first, or else you're going to have more liquid than you need.

While that's cooking, boil the water for the yellow rice, then add it when it's time. 

Slice the mushrooms, bell peppers and onions, then sautee them in a pan after you've greased it.  Cook them until they're browner than they started out and soft (not crunchy). 

Combine the beans and the salsa to give the beans a little flavor and warm it on low heat.

When you're close to being done, warm the taco shells in the oven.

Serve buffet-style, because some people won't want onions and peppers, some people will want cheese on top of the meat, others underneath it.  Some people won't care for sour cream.  Just let people decide what they want themselves.

If you're thinking it sounds like you'll be using all four eyes on the stove AND the oven all at the same time, you're right.  That's what I ended up doing.  And it only took me about an hour.

Do you have a recipe for tacos?  Do you have another favorite recipe you'd like to share with us?

Things You Should Never Share With Your Roommate - a guest post by Ricky Anderson

Ricky Tiki Anderson is my long-lost siamese twin cousin separated from me at bar mitzveh.  We were only recently reunited by Jon Acuff's Quitter because we both got to read a free copy of it before it came out.

Here's a picture of us hanging out...center column, 2/3 of the way down

 Ricky's having a baby soon, so he and his permanent roommate get to add a semi-permanent roommate for which he can legitimately use the phrase "MY HOUSE MY RULES," which tends to work poorly in most roommate situations.  Still, he came up with some magnanimous whiz-dumb for those trying to figure out how to love thy roommate.  Just like Toad said in Mario Kart 64, here we go!

Share and share alike. What's mine is yours. Mi casa es su casa.

While nice, these sentiments don't always apply to the world of roommates. Here's a few things you should never share with yours:

Hair. It's a whole new world. Hair on the shower wall. Hair in the drains. Hair on the floor. If it doesn't belong to you, give it back...at the next social gathering you're both at. If it does belong to you, get rid of it!

Fingernail clippings. These should magically disappear, but alas, they appear on the counter and for some inexplicable reason, the bath tub.

Where you were last night. Some things should be kept to yourself. TMI, dude, TMI.

Underwear. If you're out of clean underwear, it's better to wear a dirty pair than to wear your roommate's. It's better still to just wash your underwear. If you don't wear any underwear at all...TMI.

Your favorite soap operas. These are best watched in your own room, on your own TV. Don't desecrate the communal entertainment zone with that vile junk.

Odd and odorous cuisines. If Grandma's recipe lingers in the kitchen, bathroom, or any other area of your pad longer than it takes to ingest it, then keep that puppy a family secret!

B.O. - If I have to explain this one, get your own place.

What things do you wish your roommates would keep to themselves?

Bachelor Cooking: Meat

Guys may not care so much about cooking rice or noodles, but they're pretty sure to care about one thing: MEAT!

The process to cooking any kind of meat is simple:

1. It starts out one color
2. You apply heat
3. It ends up a different, darker color

Brilliant, eh?

Generally speaking, red meat starts out red and ends up brown, and chicken starts out white and ends up tan.  Now, the outside may be brown while the inside is still red or pink.  That's the difference between rare and well done.  Cook it according to your preference, checking the middle with a fork or knife.  It won't hurt the overall quality of the meat for you to cut into it.

The principles of cooking apply whether you're using a skillet, an oven, or a grill; this is what you can expect.  Now, meat tends to produce grease, so you need to be prepared to deal with it.  On a grill, the grease will just fall into the fire and stir the flames (resist the urge to squeeze the grease out so the flame kicks up - this dries out the meat!) but on a stove or in an oven, grease stays in whatever receptacle you're cooking in.  Here are a few tips for how to deal with it:

1. Dump it outside.  It won't hurt anyone there.
2. Keep it in a glass jar with a lid on it.  Some people reuse grease like this, but otherwise you can just throw it away when the jar fills up.
3. Pour it into a cup, refrigerate it for an hour, then scoop it into the trash.  This is my personal least favorite, as it just looks gross.
4. Above all, DO NOT just dump the grease down the drain.  It'll harden in the drain pipe, causing the sink to drain slower and eventually stop up.  If you have to, run lots of hot water in there first, then lots of it afterwards.  The hot water will keep the grease from congealing on the cold pipes.
5. Just use a George Foreman grill.  It drains the grease for you, although you do have to clean up afterwards!

Or you can buy its less popular cousin...the Jon Foreman Grill...

Meat is good, but it's important to cook it properly for taste and health reasons.  Undercooked meat can contain bacteria, which is why restaurants have to put disclaimers on their menus.  I prefer cooking meat with Tony Chachere's, Wor-ces-ter-shire sauce, and/or steak seasoning.  Search online for some good recipes for marinating your steak.

Let's hear it from the experienced folks.  What tips do you have for cooking meat  What's your favorite marinade?

How to Achieve Self-Sufficiency

My first year in Baton Rouge, I didn't have a job, and my parents gave me about $500 a month.  That covered rent, power, food, and I was even able to tithe off of it.  I had a gas card they paid for and they paid all my insurance as well as whatever school finances weren't covered by TOPS.  The only real problem was I didn't have a lot left over after bills and groceries.  I learned early on that if i spent all of my money on eating out, it wouldn't go very far.

After meeting Kirk, I soon found out he was completely financially independent of his parents, and only a year older than I was.  He convinced me that financial independence was doable and that the benefits outweighed the costs.  In August of 2002, I moved into an apartment on Leaway Drive, right down the road from Kirk, which meant he got a $50 credit for referring me.  I had a one-bedroom apartment all to myself. 

But Kirk forgot to warn me about something.  Something that caught me completely off guard: the initial startup costs.  I had to pay $200 for rent on the apartment plus another $200 for the deposit, a deposit on power and water, as well as the initial payments on my cell phone bill (my first cell phone ever).  Altogether, my first two months cost me about $1300.  I did get a job nearby working at Subway, which meant I could walk to work and save on gas, as well as walking to class, my bank, and just about everything else.

So to begin with, I paid my own power, water, phone and groceries (which quite often meant three items off the dollar menu), while they continued with rent, tuition, gas, and insurance (life, health, and auto).  When I got fed up with the place on Leaway Drive, my parents said they were willing to pay more for my rent in order to get me into a better place.  I got into a better place, then told them my new job (aka the Air Force) would give me enough to pay for rent.  Who won out in that case?  I dunno.  They also suspended the gas card somewhere in there, so that left them only paying for insurance. 

Fast forward another two years to 2007 and I traded in my old Buick Roadmaster for a Toyota Tacoma, which meant a car loan, which meant full coverage insurance.  I now had to pay for insurance myself along with a car note.  Finishing my undergrad meant I could no longer be on their life and health insurance, so I had to take those up, too; thankfully, I got very affordable versions of both through the Air Force.  Oh yeah, and then I started paying on my student loans until a year later when I got into grad school.

So to recap, I now pay for all of the following:

• Rent (water included)
• Power
• Internet/Cable
• Cell Phone
• Health Insurance
• Life Insurance
• Car Insurance (car is paid for)
• Student Loans
• Groceries
• Gas

These were just the monthly bills, however.  Other things to consider are:

• Hospital bills/prescriptions
• Periodic vehicular maintenance, e.g. tires, oil change, brakes, other things that come at irregular intervals
• Credit card bills (I had three at one point but they're all paid off)
• Memberships, i.e. dues for clubs and organizations
• Expensive hobbies, e.g. golf, fishing, paintball
• Modifications to your vehicle, if you're into that
• Technology, e.g. TV, game system, sound system
• Replacement technology, e.g. laptop and cell phone
• Vacations and trips you may take

The best way to know what you can and cannot spend is:

1. Budget
2. Save
3. Pay off debt

It's really just that easy.  Have a budget so you know what's coming in and going out.  Plan to save some of what you have so you may do the things in the second list, but also so you're not dependent on credit cards the minute you need more cash than you have in your account.  Pay off debt quickly, because interest is a guaranteed way to lose money.

If you have any further questions about financial independence, I'd be glad to help.  I've never read any of Dave Ramsey's stuff, but I understand he knows what he's talking about.

Maturity Monday: Why Self-Sufficiency is Absolutely Necessary

Today's post is something that is very personal to me because it was instilled early on by a very good friend, Captain Kirk, yet, while definitely encouranged and enabled by my parents, was never forced upon me.  As a result, I try to encourage everyone I know who's just moving out of their parents' house to do the same thing: become self-sufficient.
11. When I ws a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
12. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

-- I Corinthians 13:11-12.

This verse is quite often used during weddings to speak of the maturity that comes with marriage , especially due to the contents of the rest of the chapter, but its truth and application goes far beyond that.  We're allowed to be immature children for a season in which we grow, but there comes a time when we have to pass beyond that.  Paul says elsewhere:

 ¹Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;
 ²But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
 ³Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
 ⁴But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
  ⁵To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

-- Galatians 4:1-5

Unlike what the world tends to believe, the purpose of childhood is not to have a carefree life of playing around and having fun until we grow up, put on a suit and tie, and start dying behind a desk somewhere.  Childhood is when we get prepared for maturity in a safe environment, where mistakes are permissible, and where lessons should be learned lest they be repeated later on in life.  Why else do children play House and Doctor, if not to act out what they perceive adulthood to be?

In some cases, they do both...

Even Jesus spoke of children playing Wedding and Funeral in Matthew 11:16-17. 

Many of us are expected to be out of our parents' house by age 18.  Graduating from high school generally marks this point in our lives, whether we go to college or not.  But simply getting out of our parents' house doesn't make us mature -- in fact, it's fairly evident throughout society that it does just the opposite.  Why else would Hollywood make college seem like a year-round Mardi Gras?

I contend that if you're not self-sufficient, even though you're not living in your parents' house, you're still under their roof so to speak, just more like living out in the garage or the basement than in the bedroom you've had since childhood.  Sure, they may not be around all the time, but they still have authority over you -- that is, if they still give you money, they can tell you what you should or should not/can or cannot do with some amount of leverage.

I'll give a prime example.  While I lived with Spock, his mother got in a severe car accident.  Spock's father insisted that he come home on the weekends to help take care of his mother.  Spock's reasons for not wanting to go home?  He had a life and a job (and most importantly a girlfriend) in Baton Rouge, and nothing but family and sitting around back home.  Dad threatened to cut off his cell phone, so Spock responded by taking his phone off their plan and putting it on a family plan with Uhura. 

Another friend of mine bowed to pressure from his parents to move back home to Slidell and work at a movie theater for minimum wage over the summer instead of staying in Baton Rouge where all his friends were.  Had he been self-sufficient, he could say, "Sorry, mom&dad, I have this job that pays better over here, plus I have a lease and bills and everything to keep up with.  Don't worry, I'll be home to visit, but i can't stay there the whole time."  Trust me, after living on your own it's very difficult to go back to being expected to go to bed at a decent hour and having your parents wonder when you're coming in.

These scenarios, of course, are limited to ideal circumstances.  What happens if one your parents' income changes, i.e. one of them gets injured or loses their job?  What happens if their house gets foreclosed and they're paying more than their old mortgage payment for an apartment plus a storage unit for all their extra stuff?  If their life gets rocked by circumstances, you can still survive if you are no longer financially dependent upon them.  And, with the money they save from no longer supporting you, they can occasionally help you out if need be.  My parents, no longer having me on the payroll, feed just about every dog that comes up to their house.  They're able to do other things for themselves and save for retirement.  And, yes, they have helped me out from time to time when it was necessary.

Finally, being financially independent allows you to get used to a certain standard of living while in school that will hopefully increase when you graduate and get a job.  If you can maintain your former standard of living without too much more spending, you'll be able to pay off student loans in a timely manner.  My current goal is to get my student loans completely paid off before i buy a new car, and so far my truck seems like it'll keep on rolling forever.

So there's one decision you've got to make when you submit yourselves to your parents' generosity (the same can be said for the welfare system and the federal government, but that's a post for another time).  How much freedom are you willing to give up?  Everything has its price, and you either pay for college through the sweat-labor of extra hours or through freedoms you give up in order to be supported by your parents.  Self-sufficiency is costly, but at least then you have a right to spend your own money how you want.  Lastly, if you wean yourself off of your parents' finances thoughout college (if you have the luxury of that option), it'll be an easier transition when you finish college instead of suddenly paying for everything yourself when you get your first job.  You'll be used to having the money and be able to handle it properly.

Come back Wednesday for my personal story of how I became self-sufficient, and the path you need to consider when you do so for yourself.