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Finding a new roommate isn't going to be easy. When I found out I needed one next month, I went out and made the simplest flyer I could and spread it around campus. I've also been asking around to everybody I know to see if they know anybody who needs a place, but most everybody's gone until September.

This morning I got a call from an elderly man with a frightened, nasaly voice. "I'm calling about the apartment." He sounded like my computer science teacher. Maybe it was him. I could see him on the other end with his old man pants hitched up to his nipples, eating oatmeal cookies, and reading the paper with a magnifying glass.

"Great," I said, "what do you need to know?" I could already tell by the way this guy said hello that he wasn't going to work. The only thing I was thinking about at this point was how to tell him to fuck off.

"How are the noise levels?"

I wanted to tell him that I haven't gotten a noise complaint yet, that he can get as loud as he wanted, and I wouldn't care, but I knew what he was asking, and I was shocked that somebody would ask ME about noise levels in MY apartment. I once got evicted for telling my landlord to fuck off when he called me and woke me up to tell me my roommates were making too much noise. I don't like to be told to turn it down, the very idea shocked and offended me, and that's why I only started with an "uhhhhm...." before he clarified his position.

"Noise is unwanted sound," he asserted.

Yeah, noise, I like noise. I like to lie naked in the living room and blast the sound of a drum machine programmed to be out of syncopation. When I go to sleep at night, I play audio tapes of train wrecks I've recorded at full volume. I have sex with the door open because I enjoy the sounds of people having sex, and I feel that I should share it with others. When I'm not getting any, I lube up real good and ostentatiously masterbate at full volume, standing up and throwing my back against the wall with every stroke, yelling and screaming, and slapping my ass. Sometimes while I'm doing this, I like to shout the name of whoever might be living with me at the time, just to let them know that I care about them, and I don't want them to be bored with the silence.

I wanted to tell him all of these lies, but all I said was, "I'm pretty noisey, and I'm gonna stay that way. Are you a student?"

"No."

"Well this is student housing you gotta be a student I guess I shoulda made better flyers well have a nice day goodbye."

I made new flyers today, making sure to put the student requirement on there. I also put in a Pabst Blue Ribbon logo. (My economy beer of choice.) I figured this would be a good way to weed out any unqualified applicants. It says if you're not down with the PBR, I don't think we could live together. That should narrow the field down to a good pick of applicants, if it doesn't narrow the field down to nobody at all. I get the feeling that the only people that answer roommate wanted ads are uptight people who don't get along with anybody.