Theft

Let's recap the roommates I had had up until this point. First, there was Ami, from New York, who just came off as an idiot at the time, and at times maintained a two-year-old's mentality. Then, there was Vegard, from Norway, who made his position in life trying to show my beliefs to be incorrect. Then, from Cambridge, there was Robin, who kind of epitomized the British pansy stereotype. The thing is, that in retrospect I really did get along with them. I haven't kept in touch with them as much as I should have, but I liked them.

In Yeshiva, there were the two Sashas. OK, maybe we didn't talk so much, and maybe "sukka" was one of the few words that I understood them saying. Nevertheless we got along fairly well, or at least, we had no grudges.

Then I went to Ben Gurion.

My new roommates, well, maybe I was paranoid, but none of them...well, they all seemed to hate me. Two of three moved out, within two weeks of me moving in. The one who is left, I don't know what it was, but he seemed to have it in for me.

Some of it was justified. The overseas program I was on paid for our share of utilities. I didn't realize that the Israeli students had to pay for it. (I mean we lived in a trailer, for crying out loud.) So, he confronted me, I offered to pay for him, because I hadn't known that he had to pay for it. He grumpily refused.

From that point on, everything was my fault. He would come in my room, scream in English, then fall back on his Hebrew. He was still intimidating. The guy was ripped. He didn't hit me. But I had no reason to doubt that he would. Still...you can't just give in to what he says.

"Why don't you clean up your rotten food? It stinks here!"

"That's not my food. I thought it was yours. Must have been one of the other two. I'll clean it up now"

"?!אז למה לא נקית? (Az lama lo nakita?!?) [So why hadn't you clean it up?!?]

"Sorry. I thought it was yours." Honestly, I had thought it was his. How was I supposed to know? It kept going, though.

"Did you leave the hot water on?"

"Yeah, I need to take a shower...it takes some time to heat up. It's not like you don't take hot showers."

"תגיד לי. אתה משלם בשביל היונברסטי, והאבא שלך?" (Tagid li. Ata meshalem bishvil hauniversity, o ha aba shelcha?"( [Tell me, are you paying for college, or is your father.]

"I am." Blatant lie. But if I was 27, I'd be paying for it too.

"Look, I've had a lot of roommates, and you are the first one that I have eh...had any problems with." Now, I don't have a terrific opinion of myself, but if I'm truly the worst one...something's wrong here. Maybe he had a thing against Americans. Maybe he had something against religious Jews. Maybe he was just having problems at home.

Then he just left.