A ballsy post

As some of you may know, I have a roommate. Well, I say I have a roommate. Those of you who know that I have a roommate may or may not believe me, as he tends to live in the library. He's another medical student who wants to go into a competitive specialty, so he studies a lot. Good for him- it seems to be having good results thus far.

Artist's rendering.

This has led to somewhat minimal interactions between the two of us (and even with members of his own class, but that's neither here nor there). We've grabbed a drink once or twice, he came to trivia once, and we see each other when schedules permit. He's a pretty good guy, albeit with a very different personality from me. We get along well enough, all things considered, and we can complain about common topics. I mention these facts because said roommate (we'll call him Lenny, because even though it doesn't fit perfectly, it fits well enough) has decided that he wants to stomp on my testicles.

I'm really not sure why he wants to do this or what could have brought this on. Some (further) context: I'm volunteering at a Ronald McDonald House on Friday, which I guess means I'm helping make spaghetti. Easy. I make spaghetti all the time. I'm in charge of buying the noodles. Easy. How many- oh. Okay. I'm feeding forty people? Wow. That's. Well. That's a lot of spaghetti. Thank goodness for my SAM'S CLUB MEMBERSHIP.

I'm a member of a club. Take that, Alvy Singer, Groucho Marx, and Freud.

That's right, ladies. You need a palette of Cheerios? Twenty pounds of ground beef? Three pounds of potentially questionable bananas? A baker's dozen of dental floss? I'm your man, along with probably many other mans who could be your man in a situation requiring that a man be your man. Heck, for these purposes, a woman could potentially be your man, but she'd need some special equipment. Namely, a Sam's Club membership. I mean, it's a club. It has to be somewhat exclusive (although obviously not THAT exclusive, since they take folks like me).

Anyhoo, throughout living together, I've noticed that Lenny likes to buy things in bulk. He goes to the store pretty rarely (in stark opposition to my grocery habits, which are lots of small trips, likely due to having to carry all my shit for like a mile (okay, fine, 700 meters for the cheap grocery store, but if I wanted the nicer things? It was probably a mile or so. I can't remember the name of the store or find it on the map to give you a more accurate idea.) while in France).

And when he does go to the store? It's usually an insane amount of ground turkey and boxes of Kashi. You're not picturing an insane enough amount. Oh, he also sometimes gets the 0 Calorie (or calorie, in this case, because, hey, 0 calories is 0 Calories) condiments. You know, that Walden Farm stuff. Gives me the willies.

This is the face of terror.

Anyway, I'm going to Sam's, because I need 6 pounds of spaghetti. As a (sometimes) courteous roommate, I asked if he needed anything.

Here's a transcript of our text message conversation. You'll have to excuse misspellings- I'm trying to represent this as accurately as possible.

Rob: Making a Sam's run tonight. Getting milk while there. Need anything else?
Lenny: Thanx man. Im good. 3+ milks woukd be good :)

So far so good, right? I mean, I worry about the fridge fitting more than 3 milks, but we do tend to polish off that much.

And then things go off the rails (which, from me, is saying something amazing/terrible/amazible/amazeballs).

Lenny: Maybe some steel toe boots...
Lenny: Lol to stomp on Robs testicals. Ha

... What. I mean. What. Clearly he's joking (as denoted by the "Lol" and the "Ha"), but still. What. Being a reasonable and inquisitive sort of fellow, I try to find out what's going on.

Rob: We don't have room for 3+ milks. Maybe 3 though. Depends on expiration dates. Also, why are we stomping on my nuts?

Yes, a masterful play by Rob. A smooth transition from milk into why we're scrambling my huevos. I mean, this is just a joke, right? He'll just explain what's up and it'll be fine. It's going to be fine. Everything is going to be okay.

Lenny: No worries. Tell u ltr

What? No. No. You have mentioned stomping on my Netherlands, and you have not given a reason. There are times where you don't worry about things. You've turned in an assignment, your boss was being bitchy at work,  you're Australian, but the prospect of clacking my maracas with steel toed boots is not one of these cases.

Oh, wait, wait, wait. I think I know what this is. Yep. We had a conversation about a month ago relating to this. Yeah, see, our bathroom looked pretty awful. Mildew grows like wildfire in Charleston, and we hadn't given our shower a good cleaning in a while, so it was pretty dank. Jeff was out of town for a few months, but we agreed that if I handled the kitchen and living room (which also needed a good once over- look, we're bachelors, and even though it's a terrible and harmful stereotype, in this case it's absolutely true), he'd handle the bathroom. To his credit, he was a man of his word, and it was freaking immaculate. Good show, old sport. Of course, after he cleaned it, he sent some pictures. Awesome. Nice before and after thing (for given value of nice- the after was much cleaner). Then, the following text occurred. (Note: this is roughly two months ago, whereas the other texts are from yesterday.)

Lenny: He who destroys will have testicals stomped on! Repeatedly.

Okay. So, we've learned some things. One, Lenny cannot spell testicle in a text message. Thankfully, medical school exams don't really take off for spelling, since they're pretty much all multiple choice. Two, if the bathroom gets messy again, there's a chance that E.T. is going to find some all new Reese's Pieces around the apartment (note: the slang is coming from Stanford, so... apologies?). And, what do you know, the bathroom is starting to pick up some grime again. Nothing too major, but it is noticeable. And, hey, it can be awkward to tell your roommate, "Hey, clean this shit up." Maybe that's what's going on here.

Rob: I didn't think the bathroom was THAT bad. Did it get that bad?
Lenny: No bathroom all good.

Well, shit. I'm pretty much out of ideas at this point. I asked him when I got home that evening, but since The Lady was there, he maintained that I had company and wouldn't tell me why he's trying to go all Yuletide Tchaikovsky my walnuts.

So, without further ado (and with deference to these fads of lists and click-baiting):

Ten Reasons for Rob Getting His Testicals Stomped On:

10. Bathroom cleanliness. I still think this is a viable possibility. There's history of him threatening such behavior with regards to this subject, so maybe he just didn't want to say anything over text? It's possible. But then again, there's also...

9. Kitchen cleanliness/fridge/freezer space. With my recent trips to Sam's, I've been taking up a bit more fridge and freezer space. I made a whole lot of miso soup (made a little for The Lady's birthday, but then there was a bunch of leftover chard, miso, and tofu, so I figured, when in Osaka, right?) and it's taking up a bunch of space in the freezer. Also for The Lady's birthday, I made a chocolate crepe cake with mousse filling between the layers. I had done this for Christmas last year, and it's a good standby dessert. Unfortunately, the mousse required frothing some egg whites and whipping some cream, and I don't have particularly large bowls. This led to a bit of potentially suspicious splatter on the counter. Due to the hurry I was in at the time, it has lingered there a bit longer than I'd like. (Also, fun fact, I apparently cannot get egg whites or whipped cream to form peaks in any reasonable space of time. Whoops.) So, yeah, the kitchen is a bit of a disaster right now.

8. Joke about male UG exam. In the second year of medical school, students learn about the examination of the genitals for both sexes. This past week, they have been doing the male UG exam, which involves: handling of the penis (wherein they usually tell you that you're being too gentle with it and need to be firmer if you're going to express any potentially pathological fluids, which is just an awful sentence to write), the handling of the testicles (wherein you learn that the vas deferens and testicular artery feel like guitar strings of differing thickness), and a prostate exam (wherein you remember that while terms for female UG exams were basically written by an Ob/Gyn waiting for his lunch break, for men you get to imagine what a "boggy" prostate feels like). So, yeah. It's a bit of an awkward moment, and it's topical, but I would think that such an experience would make you LESS amenable to thinking about shelling your roommate's peanuts.

7. Not inviting Lenny to trivia. I haven't been great about inviting Lenny to trivia. Part of it is that he never wants to go, part of it is that I rarely see him to ask, and part of it is that I don't know how well he'd gel with some of the folks at trivia. Bit of a dick move on my part (no pun intended, but I will take full credit for it), and maybe it's getting to him.

6. General stress. Medical school is stressful to begin with. The second years have just started what I call Rash block, because it deals with dermatologic, pediatric, and reproductive diseases. It is the worst. You get to learn about fungi, antibiotics, antifungals, antiretrovirals, HIV, STDs (they travel in packs!), vaccine schedules, and freckles.

WHEN WILL WE FIND A CURE?

So, yeah. I can get the ol' sense of humor taking a bit of a hit when faced with such a load of material.

5. Not getting a wine tasting ticket. Every year, there's a big, university-wide wine tasting at the local aquarium. It's a pretty swanky affair with lots of wine and some pretty solid food offerings. Tickets also sell out within a day or two of going on sale (and that's with having to go buy tickets in person with cash or check). There was a line out the door of the gym when they went on sale. It's kind of a big deal. I got one for me and one for The Lady. Lenny didn't get a ticket. I don't know if he really wanted one or not. I probably should have checked and seen if he wanted to join me in line for tickets.

4. Allergy to chocolate. Yep. You read that right. This almost falls under the purview of number 6, but it works here, too. If I couldn't have chocolate without a terrible and potentially debilitating reaction, I'd want to stomp some grapes, too.

3. Demonic possession. Hey, just keeping an open mind about these sorts of things, you know?

Unlike SOME people.

2. Time travel. Okay, hear me out on this one. In the Terminator movies, they keep sending Terminators (huh, so THAT'S how it got that name) to kill Sarah Connor or John Connor or something. Now, to Skynet, John is a pretty serious menace, right? He's sorta their Pol Pot or Hitler (sorry, Godwin) or Slobodan Milosevic. And everyone talks about how, if they had a time machine, they'd use it to kill Hitler (well, I would use it to maybe give myself some stock tips and do REALLY well in trivia)? Maybe that's what's going on here, with a touch more humaneness. I mean, wouldn't it have been easier to just punch Kyle Reese really hard in the ol' pill bugs? Then there wouldn't be a shootout in a police station, Arnold Schwarzenegger wouldn't be governor, and my seed wouldn't spawn the next Jimmy Carter (you know, history's greatest monster).

1. Walden Farms. I'm onto them and they're going to have Lenny send a message.

"Be a shame to see your peanut spread be extra crunched."