TOOLBAG TUESDAY

I’ve only lived with a boy once. And it's not what you think.

He was my best friend’s boyfriend and both of them lived in the extra bedroom in the house me and my twin sister own.

Jason was actually one of our favorite roommates -- he hand washed the few dishes he used, he squashed the MUTANT spider we found dangling from the attic and he figured out how to run cable from the living room to the TV on the back porch.

It was the only time I’ve ever shared a living space with a guy (other than my older brother growing up), and I was baffled by his plain bar of soap in the shower and obscure magazines in the bathroom.

I don’t think anyone who came over to our house during that time would have known that a boy was living with us, since he was clean and neat and living with three girls.

Girls leave their mark more than guys do, from the adorable vanilla scented candles on the coffee table to the 32 half-empty product bottles in the shower.

And the astrology book on the shelf.
And the yoga mat in the corner.
And Tampons! (ewwwwww!)

Girly hair and face products covering Dave’s bathroom is what my friend Carmen first noticed when she peed at his house after a St. Patrick’s Day parade one year.

Carmen and Dave had met and flirted all day, and he invited her back to his apartment a few blocks away after the parade was over.

“You have a lot of girl products in there,” Carmen said when she came out of the bathroom. She was suspicious.

Oil of Olay?
Sun-In?

“What?” Dave asked, shrugging. “You don’t know any guys who have girl roommates?”

Carmen said of course she did, and she had girlfriends who lived with guy friends, so she didn’t think anything of it.
They joked about his roommate’s girly bathroom things.

After more drinks at another bar and not much dinner, they ended up at Carmen’s place, and had a fun little night together.
Dave left the next morning, said he’d call her, and she woke up a few hours later, excited.

Her smile didn’t last long.

A friend had sent her a text message asking what she did the night before and she said she was out with Dave, and OMG he’s so cute! And OMG he spent the night!

Her friend called her immediately.

“Carmen!” she said. “Dave’s engaged!”

Carmen said her stomach or her heart or some other organ dropped at that moment.

“What?” she asked.
“Yea, he’s getting married in a few months.”
“He said he had a girl roommate,” Carmen said, realizing now why they came back to her house that night.

She cursed Dave over the phone -- Oh, ARE PEOPLE CALLING THEIR FIANCES ROOMMATES now? – and, WHY THE HELL DON’T GUYS WEAR ENGAGEMENT RINGS??

She then checked Facebook where she found him, and saw pictures of him and his bride to be.
He was smiling big.

Bastard.

“I bet guys lie like this ALL the time!” Carmen yelled a few days later, noting that he hadn't called her since their night together.

“Don’t trust any guy who has Victoria’s Secret Body Splash on their sink!”

I told her that I would never, ever, trust a guy who had Victoria's Secret Body Splash on his sink.

And then I thought more about it and realized that I never thought to pick up on girlfriend/fiancé clues in someone’s apartment before.

Is this what it's come down to?
Is this what people have to do now?

Develop FIANCE RADAR??

Well, Count ME out.

I hid the Maxim magazines and bar soap immediately.

-Jenny