-Three and a half years is the natural limit for heterosexual males to live together.  And so, after thousands of arguments, hundreds of rolls of toilet paper, dozens of pre-games, three girlfriends, two apartments, and 42 months of living together separated only by a thin, temporary plaster wall, my roommate Brian is finally moving out.  It is a time of sadness and of joy.  But most of all, it is a time for retrospection.  This one’s for you, man, the most absurd roommate of all time.

-Here’s an argument typical of the Karo/Brian Experiment.  Our apartment building has a garbage chute in the hallway.  Since we rarely, if ever, take out the kitchen trash, I usually throw food waste directly down the chute.  Brian refuses.  He insists on throwing rotten bananas and leftover tuna fish in the kitchen garbage, saying, “Karo, it’s a garbage can, that’s what it’s there for.”  Dude, garbage cans only work if you empty them.  If you don’t, it’s not a garbage can – it’s just a filthy hole next to the fridge.   

-What else has made the Karo/Brian Experiment so unique?  We taunt each other in song.  That’s right, instead of making fun of each other like normal male roommates, we put our insults to music.  Here’s the soundtrack: I say I’m really tired from writing all day and Brian sings “Cry Me a River.”  Brian complains that he used to be in much better shape and I sing “Glory Days.”  I yell at Brian for throwing garbage in the garbage can and he sings “Why Can’t We Be Friends?”  Brian tells me he’ll be spending his 42nd consecutive night with his girlfriend and I sing “She Drives Me Crazy.”  I say that I’m going on a second date with a girl and Brian sings “You’re Still the One.”  I figure any friendship that spans from Springsteen to Shania Twain must be a good one.

-As if you couldn’t see this one coming, Brian is of course moving in with his girlfriend.  This is really not much of a change, since Brian and his girlfriend basically live together in our apartment right now.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  I calculated that over the past 100 days, his girlfriend has spent the night roughly 95 times, he’s stayed at her place three times, and twice they slept apart.  There are just so many jokes I could make about those figures, but I have a lot to get to in this issue, so I’m just going to move on.