House Guest

Months and months ago I wrote about freaks and how I missed their company. My reasoning was their weirdness adds a little spice to life, that they provide instant entertainment and a welcome diversion from the normalcy of everyday living. I am a big dumb idiot.

Ladies and gentlemen, a freak is living in my house and I want him to go away. This unhappy situation didn’t come about by me wandering the streets in search of some weirdo to entertain me, like I had previously planned. If that was the case, I could easily get rid of said freak with little or no guilt. No, this is situation is a product of my own idealism. If I didn’t care a spit about helping people in need, then I wouldn’t have this problem.

I know this guy from church. Lets just call him “Shmames.” Shmames sits in the back of Sunday School and provides long answers to simple questions that usually end in him reminding us all about how he knows more about everything than anyone else. On a few occasions he’s cornered me and began recounting his life story. The problem is, Shmames doesn’t understand the concept of transitions. People with regular social skills might began a conversation like this:

“Hey Jeremy. How’s it going?” Banter ensues, then: “...Speaking of people with credit card debt, I’ve had a hard time with that myself....”

Instead, James...err.. I mean Shmames, would approach the conversation like this:

“Hi Jeremy. I’m going through bankruptcy. I used to have a 60k a year job and now I have nothing and I can’t hold a decent job and I work at McDonalds despite having three Bachelor’s degrees. I’m now living in my car.”

“Good afternoon to you as well,” I would say.

Shmames gets to the root of what he wants to say and doesn’t bother with transitions or pleasantries. And the root of what he wants to say is usually an incredibly long monologue about the unfortunate and often too-intimate circumstances of his life.

But I admit I feel sorry the guy. He just can’t seem to get things together. I mean who wants to live out of a car? That’s just so sad to me. So when he asked if he could stay at my house for a few days until he got his pay check, I agreed.

Now Shmames and I are going on day four and if he doesn’t leave today I think I’m going to lose it. Shmames likes to approach me and immediately begin babbling on about horribly inane things that make me wish I had Alzheimer’s. For the first few minutes, I’ll feign interest. He’ll blather away and I’ll nod and say “mmm, okay, uh-huh,” etc. Then, when I can no longer stand it, I’ll try to interject and with phrases like, “How interesting. Well, I’ve got to take care of this thing, so...” and then he says, “Oh okay. But you know...blah blah blah” and keeps at it. So I look away and stop paying attention and he still doesn’t take the hint. Then I get up and leave, and he FOLLOWS ME. He’ll be at me heels, yakking away as I take out the garbage, do the dishes, watch television. Once he even followed me into my bedroom and kept talking as I began to change my clothes. I had to shoo him out and close the door before he finally got the hint.

What I really want to say to him is: “Shmames, shut the f*** up!”

But I suffer from my own social malady of sorts. I have “nice guy” syndrome. I’d rather put up with his banter than to have him stare at me like an injured puppy. The best solution is for him to leave, go away, never return! And it better happen today, or at the very least tomorrow. He’ll be back to living in his car, for sure, since he figured out his McDonald’s paycheck won’t cover his living expenses. I wish I could do more for him, but everyone has their limits.

Perhaps it isn’t very charitable to be selective in who we choose to help. For instance, if Shmames was a cool guy and a good conversationalists, I wouldn’t have a problem at all with him crashing for weeks at a time. But Shmames is what he is: a nut job. So he’s getting the boot. I can take no more. I’m wiping my hands.