There are a lot of things that I don’t miss about having roommates, like the omnipresent smell of ammonia wafting from our bathroom area that was sure to asphyxiate any female bold enough to walk back there. Or the nasty stank sweet potato and marshmallow pie that my roommate left on the table for 2 weeks one time until two of us had to haul it down to the dumpster and then spend a week in the ICU at Madison Memorial so our lungs could recover from the fumes. I definitely don’t miss that.

But I do miss having the option of blaming  stuff on someone else. And in the male college roommate world, it’s perfectly acceptable to knowingly blame something you’ve done on your roomie while he’s gone, because you know he’s going to turn around and blame it on you when confronted about it later. It’s like this great circle that keeps the offended party in a state of limbo.

One time I spilled orange soda on my roommate’s keyboard while he was in class. When he got back, he noticed that some crucial keys no longer worked – the “m” “n” “b” “,” and .” – and I suggested that he use the keyboard map to manually select those characters when he needed to type. I also emphatically told him that Kyle, that basstrout, had been seen drinking orange soda in the vicinity of his keyboard earlier that day. Kyle later told him that I did it. I told him that Kyle did it again, and eventually he gave up and probably ate one of my hot pockets just in case it actually was me that had done it.

Now that I’m married, however, there aren’t a whole lot of people to blame crap on. When my wife asks who left the toilet seat up, there’s not really anyone to pass the buck off to. I just hang my head in defeat and go put it down. (And by the way, why the crap can’t women just put the thing down? It’s not hard! What are you crying about? Seriously!)

The worst part, however, is now I can potentially get blamed for things I didn’t do. For example, when my wife says “Where did you put all the bobbie pins?” And I say, “I didn’t touch them,” by process of elimination I somehow manage to hoard responsibility for the bobbie-pin-disappearance. I can’t be like “Kyle did it, honey,” cuz that just won’t cut it anymore

I did try to get away with it for a little while though. You see, I have this stuffed walrus (named “Walrus”) that tells walrus facts like “My tusks can pull me onto ice and rock” in a British accent, and for some time I attempted to blame everything on him. It was mostly out of habit, to tell the truth. Kristen would say, “Do you know why the futon leg is broken?” and I would say, “Walrus sat on it,” and then squeeze Walrus and he’d enthusiastically say, “I can weigh up to 4,000 lbs!” to confirm his guilt.

But walrus can only be blamed for so much. I think Kristen stopped buying it when I told her that Walrus was the one who ate the entire package of oreo cookies in one day. I forgot that walruses probably don’t eat much sugar, but she remembered. And now I’m back to being the sole scapegoat in the apartment.

So, if any of my former roommates happen to read this, I would like to thank you personally for allowing me blame the crap out of you for things I probably did. But, I know you did it too, so I don’t apologize or anything like that. Oh yeah, and Ben: I totally drank like 10 of your Shastas after you ate my Halloween candy. I made it a goal to eat or drink one thing from your mini fridge every day out of retribution. Sucker!

In related news, I think I’m going to start wearing bobbie pins from now on and deny it. That’ll screw up the blaming thing for sure.

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