TMI ThursdayCheers for Thursdays in which the blagonets reverberate with the sound of TMI broadcast around the world and preserved for future generations to discover and wonder at the mistakes made by their ancestors.  Hip hip!

Back in college, one of the most important aspects for the first two years was of course who your roommate was.  Some folks roomed with a friend from high school and prayed that their friend didn’t end up turning into their worst enemy due to an unfortunately fight involving who drank the last Fresca and didn’t get more or who slept with who’s boyfriend even though you two totally had a fight and LOOKED like you were broken up, gawd.  Some folks took the chance on the random roommate assignment and hoped that the stranger liked to do their laundry and didn’t shave their armpits over the futon every Wednesday because the shower was scary and full of other people and they have “trust issues.”

And then there were the folks who tried method number two and ended up with an incompatible roommate and tried to change roommates during semester break.

This typically involved getting the consent of the RA and the student life office, all sorts of paperwork, mediation classes, etc.  The easiest way was for both roommates to go to the RA’s office and say, “We hate each other, and you need to move us before someone gets stabbed with a ruler.”

I had a friend who we’ll call Pez because she was about as big as a Pez dispenser.  Anyway, Pez had a roommate that she hated, but their feud was to the point where rather than change rooms, the roommate wanted to stay in the same room in order to make Pez’s life even more hellish.  So when the RA asked if she wanted to change roommates, she refused and made Pez stay with her.

Pez came by one day while I had some other friends in my dorm room and was once again livid with her roommate.  ”How the hell should I get this chick to want to move out?  How do I get her to leave?” she asked us.

Of course this generated an entire list of terrible things to do to the roommate, but the catch was that most of these suggestions would somehow result in Pez being discovered as the culprit behind the fiendish prank.  Even if it couldn’t be proven that Pez was the evildoer, she didn’t even want to have it be assumed she was the evildoer.

Finally, one of my friends exclaimed, “I’ve got it!  You should crap in a sock and leave it in her drawer!  What’s she going to do, accuse you of crapping a sock and leaving it in her drawer?  Only a crazy person would accuse someone of that!”

This little bit of advice has come in handy more times than you’d think.  Have a cranky coworker? Crapsock on their desk.  Neighbor always mowing the lawn at 10pm?  Crapsock in the mailbox.  Kids won’t shut up about some stupid cartoon or toy that somebody stole from them?  Crapsock in their breakfast cereal.  The crapsock will probably not fix any of these situations, but it would make you feel better.

I’m trying to get a trademark and a patent on the crapsock so I can begin selling it on late night infomercials, but until then, feel free to make and utilize your own crapsock.